I don’t disagree with this, other than your definition of conception. I’m just wondering where you’re getting the criteria, and most definitely wanting to correct your misplaced belief regarding the number of women who “use abortion as birth control.”
This occurred to me as an answer, too, but they don’t work precisely in that way. Miso/RU-486/medical abortion/chemical abortion aren’t as safe and easy as the scenario cmyk posits. Success rate is about 94%, 3-5% of women who choose medical abortion must continue to have a surgical abortion to complete the process, anyway. You can only use the “abortion pill” in the first few weeks of pregnancy, I think the provider I know who was willing to use them the latest was still 9 weeks. Most who provide RU-486 set the cutoff at 7-8 weeks, some earlier.
Maureen, there are several reasons why medical abortions make up a fraction of the total. Surgical abortions are safer, faster, easier, and more definite. A medical abortion happens at home, lasts up to 24 hours, and can necessitate a d&c if incomplete. Some women feel a medical abortion is the best choice for them, but they’re definitely the exception. Also, many, many women don’t even find out the’re pregnant until after the cutoff point at which it’s too late and a surgical abortion is the only available option.
All of them. Every form or hormonal contraception works in three ways, preventing ovulation, thickening cervical mucus to keep sperm from penetrating the cervical os and reaching the egg, and keeping the endometrial lining of the uterus thin to prevent successful implantation.
That was part of my point in asking the “life begins at conception” crowd if where they place the start-point of human value. Someone who argues against abortion on the basis that a fertilized egg has equal value to an infant yet uses hormonal contraception (or any one of several non-hormonal methods) is participating in “abortion” on nearly a monthly basis. If cmyk’s wife is on the pill, she’s either making an ethical choice that her desire to not be pregnant carries more weight than the human value of the fertilized egg, or that a blastocyst does not have human value and thus prevention of implantation is not an abortion.
Yes, I know. 
Maureen,
Planned Parenthood Nurse
Education Services.
Post #132, originally posted by me:
But? I suspect the amount of people with three or four abortions under their belt (no pun intended) are pretty small indeed. But even if you’re right, selfishness alone isn’t a bad reason without someone to be selfish against. IOW, selfishness as a form of getting what you want isn’t bad unless the same act means someone else doesn’t get what they want, if it’s good things for you at the expense of someone else. I just don’t consider that a fertilised egg is a person you can sin against in this way.
Yes, they could have been more careful, although as i’m sure you know, there are no 100% effective preventatives except abstinence. But I don’t consider making that mistake to be enough to set their fate in stone. It may be me being soft-hearted, but I don’t think I’m free of bias enough to be able to say or think “You’ve had enough chances now; you’re stuck with the results of what you’ve done”, especially when I don’t know any of the particulars of people’s situations. I’m especially wary when you consider that the result isn’t just a sort of “lesson” to the mother - it’s also going to mean a child is brought up by a person that didn’t want it. You’ve talked about selfishness - couldn’t it also be considered selfish to condemn that potential child to be brought up by a parent that didn’t want it in order to satisfy one’s personal urge to see them learn a lesson? I also don’t think people who treat abortions as just another prevention method are thinking the right way. But I wouldn’t want to involve a whole other person - an innocent person, at that - in my attempts to try and get them to think otherwise.
Plus I don’t think life, alone, is worthy of such rights - and I imagine unless you’ve never stepped on grass in your life, you’d agree, so there must be some other factor than just “it is life” that makes you think it worthy of protection.
I think on this, sadly, we are entirely in agreement.
Is it possible in your view to see the value of the fetus and still support abortion on demand?
Whoops! I misread the comment 
Hooray for PPH nurses!
See, that’s where you’re wrong. The equipment still operates whether procreation is possible or not. There’s only a very small window, for a female, when procreation is possible. And yet sex is still possible and people actually do have have sex all the time regardless of the ovulation cycle. And all those “alternative methods” for sex you mentioned earlier have no purpose whatsoever for procreation and yet, wonder of wonders, it’s done due to the social bonding aspect of it.
People don’t go through distinct “heat” the way lesser developed animals do. Highly developed minds produce much more complex behaviors than the simplistically primal urge to procreate you keep attempting to drill human beings down to.
Ain’t the first time I heard that. And hey, it’s getting a little stuffy in here, and I feel partly to blame… let’s turn down the heat a little.*
Okay, okay. Easy. willy-nilly is a vague concept, and I was merely posturing this concept against the relative willy-nilly-ness of contraceptives. I’d rather the two not be equated, and would prefer to see the act of abortion weigh heavily on the minds of my fellow humans, rather that just shrug it off as just another form of BC.
Relative is the key word there. And as Naja has pointed out, this certainly seems not to be the case, which I, personally, am satisfied with.
*I know, I know, we like our GD threads nice and brimstoney… but I can barely keep up with the pace.
I’m speaking the inverse. You have my sentiments backwards.
It has nothing to do with the human urge to procreate. I understand everything about casual sex. What I’m simply stating is that, whatever reasons you may have for entering coitus, nature (in that of our physiology) does not recognize it. Our semen and eggs, regardless of our intentions, will ignore our psychological desires, and hook up anyway. Not all the time… because we are clever animals, and have developed ways to mostly get around this. But it does happen.
I was using logic. Women would get abortions for rape, incest, too young, poor, simply birth control, unwanted, not convenient for them at the time, boyfriend/husband insists, etc…
Am I wrong?
I just did a quick google search to find some statistics. Now these statistics might not be acceptable to you, so feel free to reject them:
Why Abortions Are Performed
The overwhelming majority of all abortions, (95%), are done as a means of birth control.
Only 1% are performed because of rape or incest;
1% because of fetal abnormalities;
3% due to the mother’s health problems.
Source: Central Illinois Right To Life
Reasons Women Choose Abortion (U.S.)
Wants to postpone childbearing: 25.5%
Wants no (more) children: 7.9%
Cannot afford a baby: 21.3%
Having a child will disrupt education or job: 10.8%
Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy: 14.1%
Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy: 12.2%
Risk to maternal health: 2.8%
Risk to fetal health: 3.3%
Other: 2.1%
http://www.abortiontv.com/Misc/AbortionStatistics.htm#United%20States
I think this statement is deliberately misleading in that, yes, it’s a means of birth control, but for the overwhelming majority of that 95%, they’ve chosen abortion as a last resort in the failure of their chosen method. It’s not as though 95% of women who chose to have an abortion did so without ever having made any attempt at preventing the pregnancy in the first place.
I agree, it’s very vague. I mean, why else would women have abortions… but it’s just too general.
Yes. And, you were using reason, not logic. Logic isn’t emotional, but your response to that information most decidedly is. Not that I blame you; it’s grossly out of context and misrepresented.
Bolding mine, obviously. That statement is opinion, not fact. And yes, I’ve seen that pro-life site before as well. You quoted the sources they came from, after all:
The reasons put forth are the reasons given by the women polled by CBS News, not by all women having an abortion. Which, when it comes right down to it…doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that those women saw a need to have an abortion. That is all the reason necessary, as they are the ones who must live with the consequences.
No offense, but I do think that this is a good place to have another female, perhaps your wife, give you a little insight into female reproductive health.
We do not go on the pill “willy-nilly.” Anyone who’s had any kind of experience and/or reproductive education (by a medical practitioner) know very well that most contraceptives have health effects that should be considered by every woman. No one contraceptive is the correct match for every woman and not all women can take just any contraceptive. IUDs, for instance, lead to higher risks of PIDs (pelvic inflammatory disease), so are not necessarily the best choice for women outside of long-term monogamous relationships. I’m a smoker, so hormonal therapy, including “the pill” has greater health risks for me. Anecdotally, I took Depo-Provera and, for whatever reason, end up bleeding for six months straight. Wrong contraceptive. Not the best choice. Suffice it to say, my method works for me, but may not be a good choice for another woman.
There’s no willy-nilly, nor should there be, about female reproductive planning. That includes abortion, which is very invasive and often entails considerable stress and possibly very conflicting feelings in a woman that should be addressed.
I apologize if this sounds harsh, but I found your comments with regards to lack of seriousness women in general take reproduction issues to be ignorant, offensive and foolish.
Ugh, useless stats.
Why is “rape or incest” broken out into its own category? Pregnancies resulting from rape and/or incest aren’t inherently more dangerous than other pregnancies. Incest may increase the chance of birth defects, but it’s hardly a “given” and it’s highly dependent on the degree of parental consanguinity. Since these pregnancies are likely to be uneventful, leading to the delivery of a healthy infant, why are abortions in this category NOT counted under “birth control?”
Is RTL suggesting that the lives resulting from these pregnancies are less deserving than other lives? Does the termination of such a pregnancy reduce the victim’s suffering? If so, why, and why does the victim’s pain outweigh the embryo’s or fetus’ right to life? Does the termination of such a pregnancy protect the child of incest or rape from a life of humiliation? If so, why is this child more deserving of relief than the child of an embarassing, but consensual, adulterous union?
Why is “fetal abnormality” broken out into its own category? Pregnancy may be otherwise normal even when the fetus is abnormal. Depending on the severity of the abnormality, the pregnancy may simply terminate on its own; if the pregnancy goes to term, the fetus may expire shortly after birth. Many fetal abnormalities are not life-threatening at all, and can be addressed after birth through surgery (e.g. cleft palate) or accomodation at home/school (e.g., Down syndrome). Since these pregnancies are likely to be uneventful or to terminate naturally, or to lead to the birth of a live infant, why are abortions in this category NOT counted under “birth control?”
Is RTL suggesting that the lives resulting from these pregnancies are less deserving than other lives? Does the termination of such a pregnancy reduce the parents’ suffering? If so, why, and why does the parents’ pain outweigh the embryo’s or fetus’ right to life? Does the termination of such a pregnancy spare the child the pain of dying after birth? In the case of nonlethal abnormalities, does termination spare the child the pain of living with what may be the defect? If so, would RTL agree that it is reasonable to euthanize an infant after birth if the abnormality was discovered too late for an abortion?
Why is “mother’s health problems” broken into its own category? “Health problems” is vague, and could cover anything from ectopic pregnancy (risk of maternal bleeding and death) to maternal depression (theoretical risk of maternal suicide). Some of these circumstances undoubtedly warrant pregnancy termination, but others could be managed through medication and counseling.
Is RTL suggesting that the mother’s life is more valuable than the infant’s?
I’ve never liked the notion that “life is sacred, abortion is bad, except when _______.” Either you accept that a woman has the right to control her body, or you don’t. It’s not about what “life” is, or when it begins. Body cells are alive, and contain a full complement of genetic material. Sperm and eggs are alive, but we discard them all the time. A fertilized egg is alive and genetically unique, but women’s bodies discard fertilized eggs routinely. An implanted egg is alive, genetically unique, and intricately entwined with the uterus in which it resides, but women’s bodies routinely break off this relationship as well.
Twenty-odd percent at maximum fertility, I think ? That’s just a vague memory though.
However, for the purposes of this argument, over whether sex is about reproduction, I think that the days of low-to-zero fertility DO count. If sex for humans was about reproduction, we’d be just like most other animals and only be interested when females are fertile.
:rolleyes: Of course “nature recognizes it”. Where do you think our urges for sex while non-fertile come from ? Martian mind control ? You are ignoring human biology and psychology, and trying to pretend we are like cows.
Fair enough, and I apologize for my willy-nilly post. My wife has been taking hormones (Yasmin) to try and mitigate her bad periods and keep them more regular since before I even knew her. I’m sure finding the one that worked best for her, was a trial and a half.
Perhaps I chose a poor choice of words. I would have saved myself a lot of explaining if I would have just said that I feel the degree of acceptability shouldn’t be applied in the same way we do contraceptives as we do abortion. Thaz what I get for using brevity!
I’m not ignoring it, our reproductive organs are. How do you propose to tell your penis to you’re just in it for the orgasm this time. So, maybe you could persuade the semen to sit this one out, as a favor?
I had to sever my vas difference to get my sexual urges to play nice with my desired amount of offspring. Sucks… but thems the breaks.
The useful statistic would be the percentage of women using abortion as the primary means of birth control. That is I’m sure tiny. Abortion is a form of birth control by definition, (even in the case of rape, incest, or a psycho who would do it for fun) so the quoted statistics are totally meaningless.
I think he got them from a group trying to pull a fast one.