# Damn abortion protesters **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 4, 2005, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649 "2005-04-04T13:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 24
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/462 "2005-04-08T16:02:34Z")
A few things. First: > [@blalron](#): > > I believe abortion is taking responsibility. Thank you. I didn’t want that to get lost, and it’s an assertion I agree with. When a woman chooses to have an abortion, she is taking responsibility for her actions. Does anyone here actually believe that having an abortion is no big deal, and the woman who has one just skips off and continues life as usual afterward? It’s a painful procedure, and it’s a horrible choice to have to make. Most women are very aware that they are terminating a life, and most of them grieve after doing so. Our bodies are built to bring life into the world; an abrupt ending of that, however necessary we view it to be, is still traumatic. Do any anti choice people believe they are telling her anything she hasn’t already said to herself? Of course not. It’s a decision she reached after taking careful consideration of both sides of the argument and weighing the consequences. That’s what taking responsibility for your actions is. Making decisions then accepting the consequences based on those decisions. > [@Muad'Dib](#): > > Because **I believe** that egg to have a right to life. That’s fine. You’re allowed to believe that. You’re also allowed to believe Elvis is alive and bringing peanut butter and banana sandwiches for the rapture. What you’re not allowed to do is force another citizen of this country to live according to your belief structure. I don’t disagree with you that abortion is a bad thing. Just that it’s not up to me or you as to whether or not a woman has one. > [@Muad'Dib](#): > > You are forcing me to live in a country where abortion is legal. Just as the abolitionists were forced until the Civil War. No, we’re not. Canada’s north, Mexico’s south, countries over the oceans both east and west. You are free to go live elsewhere if you don’t like the rules here. As the pubbies are so fond of saying. And, your slavery comparison has been debunked several times. Clinging to it for dear life makes you appear willfully ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/463 "2005-04-08T16:12:55Z")
Actually, I think abortion is legal in Canada, but illegal in Mexico. It’s also illegal in Ireland and I’m pretty sure up until recently most forms of birth control were also illegal, as was divorce. I’ll also third the idea that abortion is sometimes the most responsible choice once a woman has become pregnant. Using an effective method of birth control. It occurred to me after I posted this morning that making hormonal birth control illegal because it has the potential to increase abortions is likely to make deliberate abortions _more_ common by relegating women to less effective birth control. I use the word “deliberate” to distinguish between an abortion which occurs when a woman goes to a doctor and asks to have her pregnancy ended and those which occur when a fertilized egg doesn’t implant because a woman is using hormonal birth control. It looks like a case of the good old law of unintended consequences to me. CJ ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/464 "2005-04-08T16:50:27Z")
> [@Maureen](#): > > Thank you. I didn’t want that to get lost, and it’s an assertion I agree with. When a woman chooses to have an abortion, she is taking responsibility for her actions. Does anyone here actually believe that having an abortion is no big deal, and the woman who has one just skips off and continues life as usual afterward? It’s a painful procedure, and it’s a horrible choice to have to make. Most women are very aware that they are terminating a life, and most of them grieve after doing so. Our bodies are built to bring life into the world; an abrupt ending of that, however necessary we view it to be, is still traumatic. Do any anti choice people believe they are telling her anything she hasn’t already said to herself? Of course not. It’s a decision she reached after taking careful consideration of both sides of the argument and weighing the consequences. That’s what taking responsibility for your actions is. Making decisions then accepting the consequences based on those decisions. thank you, **Maureen**. I had my abortion in 2000-and sometimes I am visited by a ghost child in my head. He or she would be 5 now, in kindergarten and thriving, I imagine (my other 3 are, so I figure the odds would have been with this one). But would I even be here to see that child thrive? But that child is not here and s/he is not here because of a decision I made–with my husband’s input. I make no excuses for what I did. I looked at my sisters, both of whom are dead now(one at 42, the other at 46) from diabetes. I looked at my hx of gestastional diabetes–my last pregnancy was in the “high risk” category d/t GDM. I looked at the needs of my family and my own needs. And I said, “that risk is too high for me.” After my abortion, I tipped into a devastating depression that I am just now getting “over”. Yes, it is exquisitely painful when my youngest asks me for a lil brother or sister. I do not speak for all women here who ahve had abortions-some do make a clear eyed decision and move on. **Muad** Yes-I realize that having had an abortion makes me a “murderer” in your eyes. Do you think that with the grief and mental health issues, along with other health issues (I have auto-immune problems) that I care for your opinion one iota? Demonize the women who face this choice all you want–be glad that you never have to make it. You will live your lfe and you will know women who have had abortions–I bet you know some right now, they just haven’t made it public. You can keep your opinion and your deeply held convictions. That is your right and I concur with the upholding of that right. But you do not have the right to enforce your opinion on me or any other female. You know, we actually share the same “premise” here (not sure of the correct word to use)–we both want to control aspects of life–we differ in the focus of that control. There is no middle ground here-ironic that we should both have the same impetus and yet be unable to reach mutual grounds. I think this is what the courts wrestle with–and there is no one answer that fits for all scenarios–that is my biggest difficulty with your POV. And whoever made the claim that the pro-choice folks are “frothing” here is civillyinvited by me to go fuck themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Arwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/465 "2005-04-08T17:10:48Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > A farmer just finishes planting his yearly crop. During the night hoodlums come and destroy all of the seedlings. Should they get in trouble? The seedlings have no value, you can’t eat or sell them. You can only make a profit from mature plants. So has the farmer lost anything of value then? Since the crop was destroyed, does that mean that the seeds never had any value? Should the vandals be prosecuted, since, according to you, they did not destroy anything of value? That strawman of yours was already … ehm … turned into cheap tobacco right here: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6030157&postcount=392](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6030157&postcount=392) ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/466 "2005-04-08T21:18:15Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > Yes. Right. Shall I e-mail you my home address then so you can imprison me for the next 9 months? You see, I have had sex within the last week, and for all you know the birth control method I use may prevent implantation under some circumstance. Even I’m not sure whether it does or not, although from what I know of how it works, it follows logically that it might. [/quote] Only if you were determined to get an abortion. > [@](#): > > _ **That** _ is what you are demanding of us, whether you like it or not. Tell me, while you’re imprisoning me, will you arrange for someone to pay my mortgage, car payments, and other bills, or am I on my own for that? If my employer fires me because I’ve been imprisoned for committing murder, my health insurance will lapse. Are you prepared to pay the medical bills involved in me giving birth if I do so or shall I just shove the poor kid into the world and let him take his chances? For that matter, I trust you will make arrangements for adoption for this putative child. Perhaps you’d care to raise him. The situation would and problems would be no different than those for a suicidal being held against his will in a hospital. > [@](#): > > Tell you what. If you get to call me a “murderer” because I have used the pill which may, in some circumstances, prevent implantation, how about I get to call you a “slave master” because, if I am truly a murderer, you’d have me imprisoned against my will? 1. I have not called you a murderer and I do not think that you are one. A murderer realizes what he is doing, you do not. 2. No more a slave-driver than a judge that sentances anyone else to prison or into a hospital or to do community service. > [@](#): > > Oh yes. I suggest you never have sex with a woman who’s on the pill or has an IUD or winds up using emergency contraception. That, sir, would make you an accessory to murder. > > With no respect whatsoever, > CJ If I was aware of it, quite possibly. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/467 "2005-04-08T21:24:19Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > If I was aware of it, quite possibly. As my father the cop is quite fond of saying: “Ignorance (of the law) is no excuse.” ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/468 "2005-04-08T21:50:52Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > Hmm. > > Hypothetical: Muad’Dib’s desired laws come to pass. If it can be shown that you knowingly and willfully caused an abortion, you are guilty of murder/manslaughter/etc. Correct. > [@](#): > > What happens when a woman discovers she is pregnant, and ceases eating until she spontaneously aborts? Do we hook her up to a feeding tube? Restrain her, so she doesn’t injure the fetus? Yes, just as we would lock up a potential suicide. I see this as no different from a mother refusing to feed her baby. > [@](#): > > What is the legal status of a cell teased from a developing zygote? The same cell, after it is put back into the zygote? In one location, it has the ‘potential’ to develop into a person distinct from the zygote. In the other, it doesn’t. I don’t know. That is an interesting question. > [@](#): > > How will life insurance policies on zygotes work? I don’t know. That is something that will have to be worked out by the insurance companies. > [@](#): > > Does the survivior of a [vanishing twin pair](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_twin) face murder charges? [/quote] Of course not. Would you convict a three-year old of murder? This is not even murder, it is an accidental death. > [@](#): > > And finally, have I made the point that applying standards of personhood to something that is not a person by no stretch of science, sematics, or philosophy is a really, really silly idea? There are many scientists and philosophers who would disagree with that. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/469 "2005-04-08T22:03:56Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > Correct. Alright. What would be the potential charge for the father of said aborted fetus who was aware and approved or assisted financially or otherwise with said abortion? ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/470 "2005-04-08T22:06:03Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > If you’re seriously insisting I remain celibate for the rest of my natural life, I have one suggestion for you. **You go first!** I asked if I could call you a slave-owner earlier. I take that back. It’s an insult to slave holders. You are a hypocrite. I await your arrival at my place with handcuffs, but I assure you I _will_ have company and you will not enjoy them. I am not insisting that you remain celibate for the rest of your life. I am saying that you must take responsibility for the risks you take. Now if you absolutely, positively never ever wanted to have a child then I would recommend never having sex again. Or, at least, vaginal sex. > [@](#): > > You have just _fucking_ well demonstated you have no regard for my human life and welfare. In my book that makes you worse than a murderer or a hypocrite; it makes you a sociopath. I do very much care for your health and welfare. If I did not I would not support abortion in the event of a threatened mothers life. How have I been hypocritical? > [@](#): > > A family friend of ours wanted children as badly as it’s possible for a person to want anything, yet pregnancy after pregnancy ended in miscarriage. In order to carry her twin daughters to term, she had to spend _3 months_ confined to bed. With each miscarriage, she felt awful, that she’d failed as a woman. Yet you, in your arrogance, rather than leaving her alone to grieve the children she wanted more than anything else in the world would have her poked and prodded after each miscarriage only lest she have done the thing she was least likely to do, adding to her grief and pain. You arrogant sociopath! I would have done no such thing. Only if there were reason for suspicion that she were having abortions every time would something like that become a possibility. > [@](#): > > Oh yes, if a woman who has been sterilized by having her tubes tied, so to speak, becomes pregnant despite that procedure, I believe she’s at greater risk of an ectopic procedure. It has happened that women who’ve had hysterectomies have nevertheless have fertilized eggs try to implant. Are either of these types of women murderers? A neighbor of mine had two successive ectopic pregnancies, despite wanting more kids. Is she a murderer? She’s a wonderful mother, I’ll tell you that. Of course they are not. They’re lives were in danger. > [@](#): > > It seems particularly appropriate to leave you with this curse: since you believe every act of sexual intercourse (including oral?) has the potential to result in intercourse and many of the most effective forms of birth control can, in some circumstances, prevent implantation, may you never, _ever_ have an orgasm again as long as you live. Yes, that does include by masturbation. > > CJ It would be a little difficult to get pregnant from oral. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/471 "2005-04-08T22:49:31Z")
> [@](#): > > **Muad’Dib** said: > I do very much care for your health and welfare. If I did not I would not support abortion in the event of a threatened mothers life. Abortion is a hell of a lot less harmful to the physical health of a woman that continuing a pregnancy is. You wanna save fetuses? Fine, save them. You’ll just have to do without the help of unwilling women, because you don’t get to tell us that we have to dedicate our bodies to your cause. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/472 "2005-04-08T22:58:04Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > 1. I have not called you a murderer and I do not think that you are one. A murderer realizes what he is doing, you do not. I don’t know what pisses me off the most-the way you calmly advocate what equates to reproductive prison for women, or the way you condescendingly tell us that “oh, you don’t realize it, you just don’t understand.” Way to be respectful of women. Oh, and don’t tell us in one breath that you DO care about women, and do respect their health, but don’t care about their uteruses (uteri?), just the fetus. Because my uterus IS a part of me-if it’s in danger, so am I, snookums. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/473 "2005-04-08T23:12:04Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > Incorrect. As it stands, “A fertilized ovum is a human individual with the rights and responsibilities thereof” is a premise. If you have justification for it (beyond ‘just because’) feel free to post it. I have. Several times. > [@](#): > > Congratulations. You have completely failed to address the identical-twin issue. > Also, the z/e/g of a woman who has an abortion will never wake up. Therefore, it is not really human under your standard. But it would have woken up. Just as a person under anesthesia will wake up. Therefore it is murder. > [@](#): > > Stop me if I’m wrong, but don’t we declare people without brains legally dead? So you would have no problem with euthanizing everyone in a coma? Not if there is a chance that they will wake up. An embryo will develop brains and become aware. > [@](#): > > Posited: the differences between a black man and a white one are just a teensy bit bigger than that between a newly fertilized ovum and an adult. Please tell me you agree to this. Irrelevant. The point is that they are both human, and just as during slavery, human-rights are being denied to one. > [@](#): > > Apples and oranges. The hoodlums would still be up on vandalism charges if the farmer had sown his seeds in a salt plain. Apples and oranges. If he had sown them on a salt plain then they would never have sprouted into seedlings. In my case the hoodlums would have been punished far more severely because they had destroyed the farmers crop for the year, those destroying his profits for the year. Sowing on a salt plain, those profits would never have come. > [@](#): > > And we are saying that clumps of cells (the really small ones, anyway) are not human by any reasonable standard. And that is where we disagree, and that is what all of my arguments are based upon. > [@](#): > > Muad’Dib, **sex** results in the destruction of fertilized eggs. If a couple have sex and the lady becomes pregnant, there is a very good chance that the zygote will spontaneously abort. Moreover, as has been previously mentioned, there is no form of birth control that stop this from happening. Also as has been previously mentioned, if you have ever had sex, you could well be an accessory to murder. > > Also on this note: wouldn’t a good way to prevent these tragic deaths be to simply cordon off all men and only allow sex under controlled circumstances? Sex does not cause the destruction of fertilized eggs. Disease, errors in transcription or just plain bad luck causes the death of those fertilized eggs. Just as driving a car does not accidents, drunk driving, not paying attention and blown tires cause them. Wouldn’t it be a good way to prevent more deaths by outlawing cars, electricity and natural gas? How many people die each year from them? Don’t be silly. [quoteI’d love to see the test that can discriminate between an ectopic pregnancy and, just as an example, an IVF zygote, or a zygote implanted in a mother who will die if the pregnancy is not immediately terminated and one who will commit suicide rather than bear the child. [/quote] None of that lessens the humanity of the fertilized egg. And if a woman is suicidal she would be put in a mental hospital as with any other suicide. > [@](#): > > A fertilized ovum needs a prepared uterus, certain nutrients, a lack of certain chemical compunds, and a whole bunch of other things to ‘wake up’. An unfertilized ovum needs all that, plus a sperm cell. > > If you’re allowed to posit based on percent chances that something will become a person with assloads of help from the enviornment…_checks watch_…then if you’re male, you just comitted murder. So, all creatures need “assloads” of help to survive. We need an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. That atmosphere must be thick enough to block solar radiation. I need an entire ecosystem to support me with food and conditioning the atmosphere. I need lots of clean water, etc. I do not understand your last sentence. > [@](#): > > OK. [I hope you like salad.](http://www.accessv.com/~shawgrp/psychanimals.htm) You need more intelligence then that, but if it makes you happy, monkey is now off the menu. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/474 "2005-04-08T23:13:38Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Embryos do not have human rights. Left to their own accord they will never wake up. Left to their own accord a person in a coma will never wake up. Are they less human? ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/475 "2005-04-08T23:16:28Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Hell, I have a lot of respect for him. His conclusions are entirely consistent with his premises. > > I disagree thoroughly with his premises, and with his conclusions. But I understand how he arrived at his premises, and what those premises are, and I understand how he reaches his conclusions from there. Aww, I think you are swell also. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/476 "2005-04-08T23:18:32Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Except under the system you propose, my “life” would be a life in reproductive prison. You are not in any more of a prison then those in a “parental prison” for 18 years. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/477 "2005-04-08T23:24:21Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > Yes, all of this debate, discussion and intricate explanation, me trying to respond to every poster and their arguments, has only been me saying “Durrr, it’s obvious!”. :rolleyes: Not precisely what I meant. However, your fundamental premise is axiomatic. It is true because you accept it to be true. To you it is indeed “bleedin’ obvious.” ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/478 "2005-04-08T23:25:03Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > Just as surely as **Muad Dib** believes that having an abortion is murdering a baby, so I believe that making abortion illegal will cause women who cannot legally have abortions to die. It’s a horrible choice: kill babies or kill women. The difference is that abortion directly results in the death of unborn children. Making abortion illeagel only _indirectly_ results in the death of women. It is, again, like the car example. Driving a car is not a direct cause of accidents and death. Such tragedies happen only indirectl. Unlike, say, drinking poison, which directly causes death. > [@](#): > > Two and a half years ago, I was unemployed and suicidal. I did not have the financial or emotional resources to successfully carry a child to term. I barely had the financial and emotional resources to sustain myself, and that was only with the help of a very good therapist and some extremely good friends. A pregnancy would probably have pushed me over the edge into suicide if abortion was not available. I took all appropriate precautions, including not having sex. Unfortunately, last I heard, rapists don’t stop to ask if you’re on birth control. I wasn’t raped and I didn’t get pregnant. Yes, I know. The traditional retort is that most abortions don’t happen as a result of rape, and yes, I am personalizing this. Here’s the thing. If you try to tell me “That’s different” or “But that’s the exception”, in my book you’re no better than Dan Quayle who was ardently pro-life yet, when he was asked what would happen if one of his daughters became pregnant by a rapist, said that he would want her to have the option of having an abortion. That’s all I’m asking for. Not for you to condone abortion as a good or desirable thing, but to have it safe and available when the alternative is carrying a child to term which one is financially, physically, or psychologically incapable of doing so, when abortion is, if not the best or ideal choice, the least bad one of those available. > > CJ So long as I believe that a fetus has human rights, their can be no comprimise or exception on the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/479 "2005-04-08T23:38:03Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Just to be clear then, you are also opposed to in-vitro fertilization, the pill, IUD’s and vigorous exertion, by the woman, within 48-72 hours after sex? All of these behaviors may knowingly result in a fertizlied egg not becoming a human. In-vitro would have to be performed more carefully, one egg at a time instead of a batch of eggs. The IUD’s, possibly. The pill, if taken correctly, prevents ovulation and fertilization. Vigerous exertion should be avoided, but would be an accidental death if it occured. > [@](#): > > There are others who oppose your viewpoint that I think go overboard, but you are advocating more than saving babies. You are advocating the reduction of civil liberties and the inclusion of government in private reproductive rights. You see, when you call for this, it means alot more than just professing a belief, you are forcing others to believe the same thing. You claim you are a libertarian, but that is very hard to believe given the draconic methods you have asserted should be used to advance your personal belief. It is no more of a reduction in civil liberties then those faced by parents of a born child. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/480 "2005-04-08T23:41:40Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Seems to me that seeking out a safe medical procedure to resolve a problem is showing responsibility. Being irresponsible would be living in denial about the problem and making it worse as a result. Say I owe Joe a lot of money. The due date has come and gone, but I still can’t afford to pay Joe back. Joe is quite adament that I pay him now and is threatening to take me to court. So I shoot Joe in the head. Now, in a way, this is taking responsibility for the problem, Joe wanted money I could not pay him, so I shoot kill him, thus canceling the debt. But was it right to do? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649/481 "2005-04-08T23:59:11Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I don’t know what pisses me off the most-the way you calmly advocate what equates to reproductive prison for women, or the way you condescendingly tell us that “oh, you don’t realize it, you just don’t understand.” Way to be respectful of women. You’re letting him push your buttons, you fertile nincompoop. I notice how he’s stopped responding to me, though. I guess I’m not emotional enough for him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-abortion-protesters/297649.md?page=25)