(with apologies)
I think that I shall never see
A Great Debate in this OP.
By the way, dogsbody, hi, I’m Nocturne. 
TexasSpur, I’d feel a little better about your cite if it were not sponsored by Heritage House, a strongly pro-life organization. I also note that the total shows that 26.4% of women who are undergoing an abortion have had one previous abortion - is this what you mean by “half”? I see that the stats purport to come from the CDC website, but I haven’t as yet been able to locate the original version. (I was kinda wondering what happened to the missing states - the stats shown by Heritage House use 36 states only.)
Well I, for one, am glad this is your one and only thread about abortion. We’re here to fight ignorance - not perpetuate it.
How dare you. You have no right to have an opinion about what I should or should not do with my own body.
Next time you get pregnant Ad Noctum feel free to make your own choice about what you want to do. But until that day comes - keep your antiquated opinions to yourself.
God have mercy on you for sitting in judgment of others.
[sub]yes - I know that Ad is male - that is (kind) of the point[/sub]
In my very first post here at the SDMB (not that I’m tremendously old), I said something along the lines of “I envision a society 100 years for now where people will look back at abortion and experience the same distaste we get when we look back at slavery.”
Not to pick on you, callie, but you were the last post, so what the hell (i.e., it’s not personal). Are you saying that because Adam is a woman, he can’t be against abortion? Well, obviously not, as there are pro-life women. Are you saying that because Adam isn’t you, he can’t tell you what to do with your body? I suspect that’s a lot closer to the truth, so I’ll go with it for a bit. If I missed the mark, correct me.
Callie, the government constantly tells you what you can and can’t do. Social contract, John Locke, etc.: we give up some individual freedoms to enjoy societal benefits. For example, I can’t drive the wrong way down a one way street without getting busted. Is my freedom being repressed? Yeah, I guess, but if I hadn’t given up that freedom, I wouldn’t have a car in the first place.
I suspect abortion is different because it seems like the last freedom a person should have to give up is control of one’s own body. It sucks, but giving up freedom over your own body isn’t without precedent. Men (and women in some countries) can get drafted during a war, which seems like losing freedom over my body. Men and women are required by law to get educated, which seems like it infringes on the freedom of my mind.
You think that abortion is a right. I happen to disagree. I guess when you really, really get down to it, there are no inalienable (or unalienable) rights, rhetoric of the Founding Fathers aside. So for you to insist that you have the right over your own body is, in a way, just as indefensible as Adam’s assertion that you do in every case except abortion. Please don’t act like your right is self-evident. If it were, there would BE no abortion controversy.
Well, I had more to say, but I’ll say it later, mebbe.
Quix
Ever stop to think that maybe an abortion is needed to save the life of the mother, or is the mother’s life a non-issue?
True, had my aunt gotten an abortion 8 years ago, I’d never know my cousin.
But, had my aunt gotten an abortion 8 years ago, she’d be around today.
Who am I, you or anyone to say who deserves to die and who deserves to live in this situation?
The simple fact of the matter is that it’s your body and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it. Like… have sex. Or smoke weed. Or drink booze. Are you going to tell us that you have never done any of these to your body? Who am I to tell you that you can’t? Likewise, who are you to dictate what someone can do to their body?
**
This thead is the of thing that gives pro-lifers a bad reputation. Please be assured, not all of us are extermists, nor do all of us necessarily want Roe VS Wade over-turned. (What good would that do? For a good precentage of back alley abortions, the mother dies too. That wouldn’t decrease needless deaths.) I would be thrilled if effective birth control prevented the majority of unwanted pregnancies, then fewer babies would be destroyed before birth.
However I fully agree with the bolded statement, which is one of the reasons I’m prolife in the first place. Actually, I can’t but help compare a developing baby to a parasite- something living in your body and taking nutirients from you. I think that’s one of the reasons that the idea of being pregnant is so damn unappealing to me.
quixotic78 - I am saying that he has no right to tell me what I should and should not do with my body. No right to tell any woman. Frankly it doesn’t really matter what the laws are or have been in the past - its still my body and no one elses. We may make conscious choices to follow laws - or we may not. But it is a choice - we may choose to spend the rest of our lives in jail because of a choice - but its still a choice none the less.
** minty green** would you really “have as many abortions as possible just to piss of all the insufferably sanctimonious anti-abortion folks?” Somehow, deep down, I doubt you really would. There are farther better things to do, ones that don’t include fucking around inside your own body.
** Ad Noctum** maybe should have gone into the BBQ Pit with this one…
** Mercutio**, some use the “How can YOU tell ME what to do with MY body” idea and stretch it to include that seatbelt laws are intrusive because the law requires you to protect yourself, and you’re not making a choice. What do you think about that?
Some women cannot take the pill. It would literally be life-threatening for them to be on it. Other medications can lessen its effectiveness. It’s also costly for people without insurance (or an insurance plan which covers it). So while it might be theoretically possible to make unwanted pregnancies very rare, due to the pill being excluded as a perfect birth control method for some women, in actuality that doesn’t happen.
I forgot to add that this is in no way personal quixotic78
I’m not, of course, Mercutio, but here’s one possible take:
Not wearing your seatbelt greatly increases your chances of being injured in an accident. If you’re fully insured, great. But when your insurance is inadequate for your injuries (or when you have none), other people have to foot the bill for it. Me, for example, albeit indirectly.
Except in extremely rare cases of medical emergency, the same does not hold true for abortion. I want you to wear a seatbelt to lower my potential expense. Your having an abortion does not impact my pocketbook. Thus, it’s your business, not mine.
People can ride without seatbelts for all I care. They know the consequences, but when their brains litter the highway they can blame no one but themselves.
You are comparing apples to oranges here. There are seat belt laws but ANYONE can still drive/ride without them, albeit not legally. Make abortion illegal and very few in this country will have acess to one.
Since it appears that not only is this his “one and only thread about abortion” but also the “one and only” time he is willing to say anything about it (difficult to debate when you just sit and read, Ad), I’m not confident in having this answered but I’ll give it a shot.
Ad, do you believe that a woman should have to give birth to a child created through rape or incest? I honestly want to know how you feel about this. Please explain why you feel the way you do.
In the interests of truth and fairness, I must confess that this is pretty much what it was for me, at least in terms of the fetus. The actual medical procedure was dreadful and I was really distraught over it, but the moral implications of what I was doing were virtually non-existant for me. I was 18 years old, I had no desire for children at any time in my life, much less then, I was unemployed, and I was only 6, maybe 7 weeks along… there was never a split second in which I even hesitated.
Sorry. <shrug>
stoid
it appears that some people don’t understand that other people aren’t on the internet 24/7.
I feel that in the case of Rape and incest, abortion is ratified because the person was forced to have sex agaisnt her will. She didn’t want to have sex, and it was not her fault that she got pregnant in the first place.
In the place where the mother would not be able to deliver the baby, that is when the good ol Caesarean Section would work. My History teacher’s wife was too “ahem” small to deliver the baby, C-section was the way to go.
In your OP, Ad, you stated unequivocally that abortion is murder. Are you now saying that an act you believe to be murder is ratified under certain conditions? If that is what you are saying, under what other conditions do you believe it’s ratified?
Yes, the number of pregnancies being terminated is appallingly high - you won’t get an argument from even a committed pro-choice advocate such as myself about that. What you will get an argument about is your perception that huge numbers of women use abortion as their primary method of contraception, as implied by this quote
The womans and that of the life she carries: it is selfishness, heartlessness and hedonism in its most vile, deplorable form to believe that the life created is inconsequential if it means that that life might interrupt the entertainment level or inconvenience the mother or the father in any way.
from your OP. I’m curious about the origin of this perception.
by Ad Noctum:
Uh, she is only carrying the potential for life.
I don’t think it’s selfish if the mother doesn’t feel that she is in a position to take care of a baby. It seems selfish that you would want to impose your morality on her and make her carry it to term because you’re worried about the world going to hell in a handbasket. She shouldn’t be charged the extra expenses (financial and otherwise) of carrying a baby for 9 months, because you want her to.
Or that that “life” might interrupt the life of the mother.
by Weird Al Einstein
I don’t. There is a line (no matter how thin) between self defense and murder, right? (Note: I’m not saying abortion is self defense. I’m saying this to illustrate the point that murder is a legal concept.
by Texas Spur
Maybe we should try to educate people then. In most cases pro-“lifers” are the ones that are also against sex education in schools. If our country wasn’t so scared about discussing this taboo in our schools, we might see a decline in unwanted pregnancies. Then again, we’d actually have to try to educate kids about it to see if it works.
by Ad Noctum
OK, so what if a woman was having sex, was taking precautions (condom, contraceptive), and still got pregnant? Is it still her fault? This could happen (and most likely has) to a married couple. Would you prefer that no one has sex unless the desired out come is a pregnancy?
Now IANAD, but I highly doubt that a c-section would work in all cases. I’m sure there are a lot of other problems that could come up.
If the baby is going to be born with a disability, would you be against the mother choosing to have an abortion to prevent the extra expenses of raising a disabled child and difficulty and suffering the child/person would eventually have to go through?
Reprise: Judging from the tone of the OP, I don’t like your chances of getting a rational or logical answer to that question…
Ad Noctum: Which God are you praying to? I sure as hell hope you’re not going to turn around and claim to be Christian - I am so sick and tired of people claiming Christianity as a shield for their ignorance and bigotry.
This is such a silly debate anymore.
No one ever changes their minds via an abortion debate.
And if you honestly dont believe that a fetus is a person until its viable, then really… theres no point in debating at all.
To me a fetus is no more important than an egg cell or a sperm cell.
In the wild, animals often eat their young when they cant properly care for them. We dont have the luxury of a primal existance. We have to resort to medicine.
Ive been through both childbirth and abortion and regret neither.
I don’t think that a woman with a healthy mindset who honestly believes that life doesnt start at conception will put herself through unending anguish and torment after choosing to terminate a pregnancy.
The argument of “Well… if my parents had aborted, I wouldn’t be here right now” is so completely assanine. If your parents had decided to go see a movie that night instead of having sex, you wouldnt be here. If your parents had been on birth control, you wouldnt be here… But I highly doubt that you’re in any hurry to protest people who go to the movies as opposed to having sex. Or people who use birth control, even.
Point being… Thats just how you feel, Adam. And theres nothing wrong with feeling strongly about something.
I feel very strongly that vegans dont deserve canines or incisors.
I feel very strongly that Abortion should be legal.
These are feelings and its very important to distinguish them from facts. When the two begin to blur and lose definition, clinics get blown up and vegans end up suing. =)
But to each their own. I will continue to advocate the choice to terminate your own pregnancy and I will continue to irrationally dislike vegans.
Nobody’s Perfect.
I forgive you for unintentionally insulting me. I hope that my special vegan friends can do the same for me. =)
Yes, you’re quite right, but the thing is that each little itsy bitsy cell in the fetus contains a very unique genetic code, the chances of which that the code will be recreated twice, or even have the possibility to be recreated in the egg and the sperm are so infinitismally small that when they combine and create that blueprint, they create something that will for all practical purposes never be seen again. Sure, those nights that you decide to go see a movie or lurk around the SDMB instead of sex see the loss of many of those unique combinations, none of them was made into a whole. Once you make them into a whole, and you’ve completed the blueprint and set in motion the growth of what will one day be another human being, you’ve done something that will never happen again. Yes, it’s not a human at conception, and in the the beggining of the first trimester, it’s not human, but it has the potential to be another unique individual. We teach our children that they are all special because although they are human, they are unique. We don’t, however, have any compunction about destroying a uniqueness because someone chose that it wasn’t the right time, or another reason that she didn’t want to have a baby. I find that incredibly sad, and I believe that once conception has occured you can’t just take that potential life away. Sure, other things could have been done that special night other than having sex and creating the first cell of what has the chance to be a human, but by saying that just because any number of things could have prevented it from happening it’s perfectly alright to destroy it.
A man commits a murder. Do you consider what he did to have been a crime, or is it perfectly alright that he just ended what didn’t necessarily have to be because the victim’s parents could have done something other than concieve that particular person? To say that it is ok to destroy the parts of life, but not the life itself seems slightly skewed.