I did find myself pregnant after my rape. My son is 5 now and he’s amazing. He actually sings, plays and sleeps just like any other 5 year old, he hasn’t shown a single sign of violence. I am the grand-daughter of siblings. My grandmother was raped by her brother who has special needs. He still lives with her. I guess it’s all in how you look at a situation. I found myself pregnant and thought “Wow, I’m having a baby! I am creating LIFE”, then I went on to cackle madly but that’s besides the point.
That is great MamaHen. I am truely happy for you and I hope you raise your son to be a wonderful person as you seem to be (from your relpy). While I grieve for the method you and your grandmother conceived those children, every life is precious. I would say that you and your grandmother made the choice I would want my wife to make in that situation; I would support her decision either way.
As NurseCarmen already mentioned PBAs are rarely if ever done simply because the mother decides she doesn’t want to have the child. It is nearly always for medical reasons where the mother’s life is at serious risk.
“Thou shalt not kill” has no bearing on this whatsoever. It is a religious piece of dogma and not the law of the land (separation of church and state and all that) no matter how much you might wish it to be otherwise. Laws can be based on moral grounds and religion certainly claims a piece of that territory but just because the good book says “Thou shalt not kill” doesn’t make it a law of the USA (if it did you should write Bush and ask him to reconcile that with a potential war with Iraq).
Mammahen you have taken a noble and enlightened approach to a horrendous problem. Commendable, indeed. And if such nobility were commonplace, most likely none of this would be a problem worthy of consideration. But it is not.
But not for a moment would I have you not “cackle”, as you put it. Cackle away, hire a megaphone and a skywriter. Music to my ears.
I must assume, from you post, His4ever, that you are equally as opposed to capital punishment.
I, too, was caught off guard by your stance, having considered you clearly conservative from your posts on other issues, but this line makes me curious- do you vote no on the ban because you support the option of abortion, or to maintain a sense of consistency in regards to the legality of the issue? If, for example, the tables were turned - Suppose abortion had been outlawed completely, and the current issue is the legalization of aborting a fetus in its earliest stages of development - would you support the bill because you support the option, or would you oppose it because once we’ve decided it’s wrong, it shouldn’t be used at all?
The only way I would consider being for a ban on partial-birth and third trimester abortions would be if there were a completely iron-clad provision that they would be legal if the life of the mother were in danger, and that includes mental health. Otherwise, you’re trading “killing babies” for killing women. The last two words are rhetoric on my part, intended to match the rhetoric of “killing babies.”
Personally, I am anti-abortion just as I am anti-divorce. I consider both to be always morally wrong, but I also know full well that both are, at times, necessary. I also believe a person should do everything practical to make sure that she’s never in a position where either becomes necessary, whether that’s using birth control or making sure she knows someone well. I also realize sometimes things go wrong which is why I don’t like having legal restrictions on either one.
If I were to find myself pregnant tomorrow, presumably because I was raped today (that’s the only way a pregnancy’s going to happen to me right now), I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t have the income to support myself without a job for nine months, and I suspect pregnancy would interfere with finding temporary work. Despite the fact that I believe abortion is morally wrong, I would consider it. How can I carry a child I cannot support? If I could work out the financials and other logistics, which I would prefer to do if at all possible, I’d put the child up for adoption. However, I’m aware of one other thing. I’m at an age where the odds of any child I have being handicapped are growing greater by the day. Which would be crueler – bringing a child into the world with severe handicaps who is only destined to live a few days and spend those in pain, never leaving the hospital, or aborting it?
I am, obviously, politically pro-choice, except to me, it’s pro-the-awful-choice. Before Roe vs. Wade, women did seek out illegal abortions, and the consequences sometimes proved fatal for the mother as well. This is the choice, as I see it: keep abortion legal and “kill babies” as the pro-life movement likes to put it, or make it illegal and kill women who see themselves with no alternative. It’s not my choice to make, therefore I am pro-choice. I agree with what I consider the heart of the pro-choice movement – abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
CJ
I propose the challenge that someone find a cite for an abortion statistic that isn’t skewed.
true. true.
Is there a segment of society who wilfully use abortion as a contraceptive device? If not, and knowing fully well that abortion is an emotionally and physically draining process for the woman, why on earth is there a controversy about this?
Huh. Umm, well no. Ad hominum attacks may be convenient, but you haven’t credibly argued against the quotes.
I also notice that you provided no cite for your assertion that 99% are done for serious maternal or fetal health risks…care to back up that claim?
I note that the AMA had previously endorced a ban on the procedure, even though “the AMA’s general policy is to oppose criminalizing medical procedures”
This is strictly anecdotal evidence on my part but I have seen some women who seem to use abortion as a contraceptive device.
I used to work for Planned Parenthood and saw many women come through the doors to our clinic. I would say most women did not view abortion lightly but clearly a few did. I talked with our resident psychiatrist who would counsel many of these women and she said that as with most things there were as many takes on getting abortions as there were women getting them. Some, the psychiatrist said (without ever betraying a specific confidence) were quite unperturbed by the whole thing. Add to that multiple visits and counseling to try to be more careful (less sex, better timing, contraception, etc.) the women felt that abortion was simplest for them.
Again, MOST women seemed to take the whole process rather seriously and many were deeply upset by it. Still, there were a few in the bunch who showed no more emotional concern for what was happening than were they there to get an ingrown hair seen to (of course some might just have been suppressing emotions but one would suppose the psychiatrist would get through that).
Yes, Russia, at just under 60% of all pregnancies.
I’d like to propose everyone substitute the words “birth control” and “contraception” with the words “life prevention” in every post, article, and document—then see how moral it sounds…
I also disagree with laws dealing with abortion are as necessary as laws for seatbelts, helmets, and other laws that should clearly be left to the “commitor’s” or “actor’s” discretion. The government should have no say on what I think is right for me, unless I am infringing another’s right to life, liberty, property, pursuit of hapiness. Yes, I know that the fetus has the right to life too, but while it is attached to the mother, the mother owns it and can do what she pleases with it.
That is truly one of the oddest proposals I’ve ever seen from any side in these debates. By extension I’ll be sure to tell the next woman who refuses to have sex with me that she is preventing a life so she feels badly :rolleyes: .
According to the statistics gathered by the CDC here the total number of legal abortions performed 21 weeks or later into the pregnancy for the years 1998 through 1993, 1990, 1985, 1980 and 1975 (those were the most recent 10 years shown on the study) was approximately 140,000.
According to these statistics (also gathered by the CDC) the number of maternal deaths related to pregnancy complications has averaged about 7.5 per 100,000 live births for the years 1982 - 1996.
This site (also from the CDC) shows the birth rate for the past 20 years. If we average out 7.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births for the years 82 through 96 then the approximate number of maternal deaths for that period is 4,379 or 291 per year.
Let’s compare only the years where this data overlaps shall we?
— Year — | ---- 21+ week abortions — | — Maternal deaths —
1996   18,390 292
1995   16,954 293
1994   16,471 296
1993   17,290 300
1990   14,290 312
1985   10,632 282
Total: 94,027 1,775
Now I believe that abortion should unequivocally be an option in the third semester where the mothers LIFE is in danger. If the mother’s life isn’t in danger and it’s a third semester pregnancy then IMHO the state has an overriding interest in rights of the unborn which should trump any issues of choice. From the data I’ve located (from a neutral source) it seems highly unlikely that all 94,000 21+ week abortions were life threatening situations when maternal deaths for those same years is only a couple percent of that total.
Grim
I don’t know what Partial Birth Abortion is, and I give up trying to find out. If you try to explain it to me, I won’t listen, because I know that your description of the procedure and its implications will be colored by your political views. I am suspicious of all “facts” presented as relating to abortion, so I just disregard them. I’m tired of hearing some supposed fact or statistic, using it to formulate my opinion, and then having to revisit the issue when I learn it was all just so much sensational bullshit. Since I’m a man, I’ll never have to confront this issue personally, so I don’t have to form an opinion.
So why am I here? To congratulate the abortion-politicizers for having disillusioned at least one person into complete apathy. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Soup Nazi should we also call Rapists ‘Free lance life providers’?
How could we get unbiassed abortion statistics? These seem to be so important to the question at hand. Are there any medical journals that would be considered trustworthy by both sides of the fence?
Cheers, Keithy
Ahh…the “Stick Your Head in the Sand and Hope the Problem Goes Away or Doesn’t Bother You” method of thinking.
That the issue is difficult, that there are vested interests on both sides of the fence spinning data and rhetoric there way is a given. Happens with many things. That doesn’t mean it should be ignored. Seek out your own info from sources YOU feel are reliable or trustworthy. Read things from both sides fo the debate. Let it all stew in your head for awhile and your very own opinion will come out so you need not rely on others.
Another point from USA Today…