# How has legal abortion harmed society? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359 "2009-06-01T14:52:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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:** [June 2, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/101 "2009-06-02T20:05:40Z")
Considering what **kanicbird** ’s “logic” usually is, I’m guessing he’s saying that these people are God’s punishment for abortion. (At least, that’s what God “told him.”) Or else they made deals with the devil before they were born, who knows? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/102 "2009-06-02T20:35:43Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > I don’t get it. Are you talking about neglected children or children put into the foster system? As a serious attempt at interpretation, I think he’s saying that it’s a darn shame that we don’t post graves and mourn publicly for every zygote that (presumably for _any_ reason, including natural miscarriage) doesn’t make it far enough into the human mindset to merit such recognition. He then parallels them with other people he feels have been discarded from the human race -including murderous felons, apparently- and seems to express the belief that all these people have been unfairly marginalized and should be accepted (or forced?) back into full roles in society with loving arms. (Or at least mourned and given graves when they die - assuming they don’t already.) Presumably if we did all that our chakras would be clearer, or something. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/103 "2009-06-02T21:03:40Z")
> [@Rhodes](#): > > The OP is “How has legal abortion harmed society?” > > Which naturally raises the questions “Has legal abortion harmed society?” > > and “Has legal abortion benefitted society.” > > Is it too far off-topic to ask “If legal abortion benefits society, then does that necessarily make it moral?” No it doesn’t. But the burden is on abortion opponents to show that it is immoral, contingent on defining and explaining morality in the first place. It’s _arguable_ that abortion benefits the environment, which _ought_ to be considered a moral issue. OTOH, some vegetarians regard eating meat to be immoral, which is more a matter of personal philosophy. The thrust of the OP is that one possible argument against abortion–that it harms society–is moot because apparently it does not. ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/104 "2009-06-02T21:10:10Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > As a serious attempt at interpretation, I think he’s saying that … Do we really need a serious attempt at interpretation? He concludes his statement with “This I believe has been revealed to me is a direct result of abortion.” If **kanicbird** is receiving revelations, presumably from God Almighty, then that pretty much trumps anything we mere mortals might believe. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/105 "2009-06-02T21:16:42Z")
> [@Rhodes](#): > > Do we really need a serious attempt at interpretation? He concludes his statement with “This I believe has been revealed to me is a direct result of abortion.” > > If **kanicbird** is receiving revelations, presumably from God Almighty, then that pretty much trumps anything we mere mortals might believe. Actually, I retract - I misread his closing sentence as “This I believe has been revealed to me **A** s a direct result of abortion,” meaning that the disenfranchised status of dead zygotes had opened his eyes to the deporable state of “other” elements of humanity. I probably misread it this way because it was the only interpretation that made a lick of sense, causally speaking. And grammaticaly speaking. Aware now of my error, I believe that **Guinastasia** ’s first interpretation was correct. I will slink away now. ---
**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:** [June 2, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/106 "2009-06-02T21:34:52Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Aware now of my error, I believe that **Guinastasia** ’s first interpretation was correct. > > I will slink away now. It’s okay. The only reason I guessed is because he’s done so before. (Telling a poster that his daughter was born with birth defects because she made a deal with demons, for example.) ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/107 "2009-06-02T21:46:58Z")
> [@Pazu](#): > > Absolutely not! :eek: > > Leaving aside everything else, I don’t know if you believe yourself a physician, but no ob-gyn in their right mind would, if given the choice, “wait to see if symptoms consistent with pre-eclampsia develop into actual eclampsia”. Pre-eclampsia requires treatment so that it doesn’t progress to eclampsia, and patients who do not respond to therapy (progressing from mild to severe pre-eclampsia even under treatment) generally require delivery regardless of gestational age. The same holds true for the 25% or so of women who go straight from mild pre-eclampsia to full-blown eclampsia. The poster I was responding to suggested that pre-eclampsia symptoms were sufficiently life-threatening to warrant abortion. The medical literature (I keeping referencing this because the people accusing me of pretending to be a doctor seem to lack basic information on medical conditions) indicates that pre-eclampsia in most cases is easily controlled. “If a woman develops mild preeclampsia before her 37th week, her provider usually recommends that she reduce her activities.” [http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/14332\_1222.asp](http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/14332_1222.asp) However, my comment didn’t suggest pre-eclampsia shouldn’t be treated, only that abortion is an extreme response–most woman will want to “wait and see” if symptoms can be managed until the 37th week before ending her pregnancy. I also said if a woman felt that the risk to her health was too great prior to viability, I would defend her right to choose abortion. What’s objectionable is any attempt to convince a woman that abortion is necessary when it isn’t. Every woman I’ve ever met who reached this stage of pregnancy would be horrified to lose her baby, and an ob-gyn who recommended abortion when it was not medically necessary would deserve to lose his or her license. My premise continues to be unrefuted: no medical condition exists wherein the abortion of a fetus that has reached viability will have a substantially better chance of saving the life of the mother than an attempt to deliver will. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/108 "2009-06-02T22:10:28Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > My premise continues to be unrefuted: no medical condition exists wherein the abortion of a fetus that has reached viability will have a substantially better chance of saving the life of the mother than an attempt to deliver will. I thought I mentioned hydrocephaly before but perhaps not in direct response to this. Anyway… > [@](#): > > Most of the D&X “abortions” the Republicans in the Senate (and their allies in the religious right) have been referring to in their graphic descriptions in Congress involved fetuses with massive cranial abnormalities, and the doctors were forced to destroy the head of the fetus to allow it to be extracted without damaging the mother. In these cases, the fetus had developed hydrocephalus—a condition that can result in the fetal head reaching a diameter of 50 centimeters, or about 20 inches! The average adult human head, by comparison, has a diameter of about 7 to 8 inches. Because approximately one in two thousand fetuses develops hydrocephalus, as many as five thousand fetuses in the US each year are diagnosed with the condition. Because hydrocephalus is hard to detect before late in the second trimester, around 500 women in the US are forced to undergo the D&X procedure each year or be killed by attempting to deliver a hydrocephalic fetus. In these cases, given the desperate conditions, it is more understandable that the doctor could be required to drain the head of the fetus while it was in the uterus in order to save the mother. > > Where caesarean sections have been attempted to try to save hydrocephalic fetuses, the fetus has almost always died following the surgery, and in the rare case of a fetus surviving, it has exhibited severe mental retardation. The mothers who survive the caesarean section can be rendered infertile, and the risk of infection is very high. It is unclear as of the writing of this article what the fate of women bearing hydrocephalic fetuses will be under the PBABA. > > SOURCE: [The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003: Republicans drum up support from religious right - World Socialist Web Site](http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/abor-o24.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/109 "2009-06-02T23:19:54Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I thought I mentioned hydrocephaly before but perhaps not in direct response to this. > > Anyway… If you mentioned it I missed it. I’d prefer a medical source over the World Socialist Website you used. I’m not able to find a medical reference to hydrocephaly or hydrocephalus that references an oversized head. Granting that fetal abnormalities could include an oversized head, wouldn’t a Caesarean section be a solution? That said, this is the closest thing I’ve seen to a refutation of my premise. It actually makes sense: the baby can’t be delivered without harming the mother because the head is too big. I’m going to check this out further, but for now, let us declare…IGNORANCE FOUGHT!! ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/110 "2009-06-02T23:22:36Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > Anti-abortion camps claim that godless, amoral sinners who choose to have an abortion and cancel out god’s work do so without the slightest bit of reflection. This is incorrect. > > What is correct is that godless, amoral sinners who have abortions do have abortions without the slightest bit of religious reflection. This pisses these anti-abortion people off something fierce. > > (clearly this is not intended to demonstrate the attitudes of every person against abortion - merely the aggressively anti-abortion groups) You know that for a fact, do you? Can you give me a cite? Ever heard of these people? > **[Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League Homepage](http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html)** > > Homepage of the web site of an online organization of nontheistic and nonreligious pro-life/anti-abortion advocates ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/111 "2009-06-03T03:09:33Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > I’d prefer a medical source over the World Socialist Website you used. I’m not able to find a medical reference to hydrocephaly or hydrocephalus that references an oversized head. Granting that fetal abnormalities could include an oversized head, wouldn’t a Caesarean section be a solution? How is Supreme Court testimony? > [@](#): > > 1. The materials presented at trial referred to the potential benefits of the D&X procedure in circumstances involving nonviable fetuses, such as fetuses with abnormal fluid accumulation in the brain (hydrocephaly). See 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1107 (quoting AMA Report, App. 492 (“ ‘Intact D&X may be preferred by some physicians, particularly when the fetus has been diagnosed with hydrocephaly or other anomalies incompatible with life outside the womb’ ”)); see also Grimes, The Continuing Need for Late Abortions, 280 JAMA 747, 748 (Aug. 26, 1998) (D&X “may be especially useful in the presence of fetal anomalies, such as hydrocephalus,” because its reduction of the cranium allows “a smaller diameter to pass through the cervix, thus reducing risk of cervical injury”). Others have emphasized its potential for women with prior uterine scars, or for women for whom induction of labor would be particularly dangerous. See Women’s Medical Professional Corp. v. Voinovich, 911 F. Supp. 2d 1051, 1067 (SD Ohio 1995); Evans v. Kelley, 977 F. Supp. 2d 1283, 1296 (ED Mich. 1997). > > SOURCE: [Sternberg v. Carhart](http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZO.html) Unfortunately I have been unable to get the articles referenced (JAMA requires a login I do not have). Still, if your Google-Fu is stronger than mine perhaps you can dig up the cited medical journal articles. My original cite referenced that c-sections came with its own distinct drawbacks in this case. We really need a doctor who would know to answer that though as I can find nothing one way or another on that. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/112 "2009-06-03T03:31:02Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Considering what **kanicbird** ’s “logic” usually is, I’m guessing he’s saying that these people are God’s punishment for abortion. (At least, that’s what God “told him.”) > > Or else they made deals with the devil before they were born, who knows? Ahh right. Completely forgot what poster that is. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/113 "2009-06-03T12:20:36Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > Loosening of moral standards. At least for those of us that think that babies are also humans. I agree that babies are human (beings), The few cells are not yet, it is true they contain human life but biologicaly the fertile ova is no more a human being than a fertile chicken egg is a chicken, or a pollenated apple blossom an apple, a fertile embryo a calf, pig, or lamb. One doesn’t look at a petri dish and say oh what a cute little baby. If I sold you a cow and just gave you an embryo you would take me to court because you expected a fully developed cow. Biologically it is the same. Of course a human being has more value than the zygote.(Can one murder a fertile egg)? and a calf has more value than a fertile cow ova. So I feel the morning after pill should be readily availible to a woman or girl who could be raped or a person not able to care for a child. If a embryo has a soul,then where does it’s life go? If life and soul are something different.Does the soul freeze in a frozen embryo,does it hover over the embryo until it is thawed? Many questions can arrive and many are left unanswered. I had 2 early mis-carriages and neither looked like a baby and I never felt I lost a baby, I had a miscarriage of 2 that would have become a babv. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/114 "2009-06-03T12:28:00Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > How about just making it legal to kill your own baby up to the age of one year? Once a baby is born it becomes a member of society and that is a big difference. The woman or couple have decided to allow the child to be born and accept the fact that now all society must protect the child as best as it can. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/115 "2009-06-03T12:49:01Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > There are unalterable spiritual laws, one such law is you reap what you sow, sometimes called karma, and there are many other forms of this widely accepted belief. As such aborting a person is basically throwing them out of the human family. There is simply no record of them ever existing, no name, no SS#, no certificate of death, no tombstone, and most mothers of aborted children refuse to acknowledge that they had that child. > > Look around in society at the people who are thrown away, homeless, jailed, phyc patients confined at hospitals. I’ve talked to some of these people, most of them got involved in things like drugs/sex/other to releave the pain that they are just not treated like a person and thrown out of human society. There really is nothing ‘wrong’ with these people, ‘normal’ people are not somehow better then them, they are not ‘defective’, they just are not recognized as part of the human family. > > This I believe has been revealed to me is a direct result of abortion. Almost all history has stories of religious use of killing people for their benefit. The Koran, Old Testament,accepting killing. Christianity was built on the killing of God’s son (If the New Testement is true). Self defense is Killing. The word murder is saved for special occasions. Innocent people of all ages die in a war and it is well known ahead of time that some innocent people will die. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/116 "2009-06-04T12:29:45Z")
I work with homeless people, helping them find places to live. I’ve actually been told that I should give up my (low rent) apartment so they can have a place to live. Nobody has a rent to my apartment or my uterus. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/117 "2009-06-04T13:12:03Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > If a embryo has a soul,then where does it’s life go? There’s no evidence for souls, what evidence there is, is against them. and even if they were real, why should we care in this case ? Soul or not an embryo is a mindless thing. If an embryo has a soul, that’s an argument for the unimportance of souls, not the importance of embryos. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/118 "2009-06-05T12:49:02Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > There’s no evidence for souls, what evidence there is, is against them. and even if they were real, why should we care in this case ? Soul or not an embryo is a mindless thing. If an embryo has a soul, that’s an argument for the unimportance of souls, not the importance of embryos. That is( sort of) my point. Some people think it is the soul that gives a fertile egg personhood. To me the word ‘life’ and ‘soul’ are the same thing. When a person dies life leaves the body. The body decays and returns to the different atoms it was before birth or conception. I realize that I can be wrong, but that is my conclusion. Every thing that is alive today will die sometime. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/119 "2009-06-05T14:45:04Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > I don’t get it. Are you talking about neglected children or children put into the foster system? I’m talking about all people who are basically thrown away by society, homeless, jailed, neglected children and adults are a direct result of the ‘karmic’ effect of abortion. We reap what we sow. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359/120 "2009-06-05T14:48:38Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I’m talking about all people who are basically thrown away by society, homeless, jailed, neglected children and adults are a direct result of the ‘karmic’ effect of abortion. Since consensual abortion is fundamentally benevolent, any “karma” would go the other way. More to the point, all those behaviors you decry tend to come from the side of the political spectrum that _ **opposes** _ abortion - because opposing abortion is all about hatred and a disregard for others. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-legal-abortion-harmed-society/498359.md?page=7)