I know the argument that if abortion is banned women will do it illegally and dangerously, but I don't think that justifies it by itself. The same could be said about the death penalty; if it is made illegal, it will force families to murder the criminal themselves using less than safe methods.

I agree that abortion is needed if the mother will die if she goes to term, and if the child is severely malformed.

What I have a problem with is abortion as birth control. I can't wrap my head around it.

Is acceptance of open-slather abortion always a progressive idea?

I think most ppl are against abortion, perhaps males are more against it (Survey Says?).


Too Bad that hormones almost rule teen-agers (some of them).

I'm with you, oz

At what stage of development do you consider the fetus to be a person? That seems a reasonable point to draw a line, though people will continue to argue over what should be allowed on each side of that line.

I would draw a bright line at self-awareness and/or consciousness, though I'm not sure when that would be. Sometime between the third trimester and the mid-20s, probably.

ⅽupcakelicker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would draw a bright line at self-awareness
> and/or consciousness, though I'm not sure when
> that would be.

That would be between 1.5 and 2 years old. Drawing the line there will surely make for some interesting discussions...

rt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ⅽupcakelicker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I would draw a bright line at self-awareness
> > and/or consciousness, though I'm not sure when
> > that would be.
>
> That would be between 1.5 and 2 years old. Drawing
> the line there will surely make for some
> interesting discussions...

That's why I was careful to use an indefinite article... playing it safe!

At four months, the fetus begins having brain activity. This is the turning point for me.

Being of a certain age, I do remember when every hospital had a "septic" ward. These wards were filled with women who had botched abortions. I, for one, NEVER want to go to that again.

Oz, I think you underestimate the thought processes that women go through when considering an abortion. It is not used as "birth control". It might be that birth control failed. I dare say that in most cases the woman is not able to adequately care for the child. The mormon attitude of "once pregnant, you must have the baby and we don't care who is going to look after it" is unacceptable.

Approximately 20% of pregnancies result in miscarriage. Nobody says that nature doesn't have the right the right to choose which foetuses get to live and which die. I don't think that a foetus, with an 80% chance of survival, has earned the right to live yet.

A foetus is not independent from the mother. In a way it is still part of the mother. Surely the mother has the right to control her own body? I strongly believe that women have the right to choose whether to have an abortion, and that we should not judge them for their decisions.

With my "wife" (we're not married), we had a birth control accident in 1982. We were both students at the time and not even living in the same country - she was in Paris, I was in Liverpool.

Abortion was the best solution, in my opinion, but that doesn't mean it was nice or easy (particularly for my wife).

There was no way we could give that potential child a decent life with things as they were at the time and I (we) feel no guilt about it. It's what I consider the most "pro-life" thing to do (I hate how antis have hijacked the word life - what sort of life ?).

We've since made up for it with three children, now all adults.

Obviously it shouldn't be used casually as birth control, but history all over the world has shown that, when it's not allowed, people still do it and women DIE!

Tom in Paris

My favorite quote on the subject is "Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare". I'd attribute the quote, but it might turn political really fast.

cupcakełicker (sober) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My favorite quote on the subject is "Abortion
> should be safe, legal, and rare". I'd attribute
> the quote, but it might turn political really
> fast.

I believe it was that great defender of women's rights,* Bill Clinton.

*Except when one-on-one behind closed doors. But hey, rank has its privileges!

I'm going to go with the feminist line, in ref to this statement:

"I'm "progressive", but have a hard time with aborting healthy fœtuses"

Then don't.

Your feelings have no influence on the reproductive rights of American women.

Yeah, I'm kinda thinking if a person has a problem with abortions, then they probably shouldn't participate in one.

Good for you, hopefully you are not a female.
A fetus is a fetus, nothing more.

quinlansolo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good for you, hopefully you are not a female.
> A fetus is a fetus, nothing more.


Do you feel that a fetus is not a person until it's been born? One could make a pretty good argument that there's a person in the womb once the fetus is viable (I think Roe v Wade used this). Mormon pioneers had a much later cutoff: the first breath, which is probably the closest they've ever come to interpreting the Bible in an insightful way (if they were the first, though I doubt they were).

If ever there was an issue where men should have absolutely no say, this is it. Of course, men run the world, so women have very little influence upon laws concerning the primary biological function of their own bodies.

In ancient Rome, a baby had no right to live until one year old. He or she was not considered an actual person, unless the father recognized him or her. Those that were not so recognized and accepted were abandoned to predators and the elements in the woods. (I wonder if this practice plays into the Romulus and Remus myth.)

Christians rescued and adopted these infants, which partially explains the growth of Christianity in its first few centuries. Doing so was a capital offence.

Now a foetus is not an actual person unless the mother so determines that she wants to carry him or her to term.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2015 11:50AM by caffiend.

My family is very, very Catholic. And more abusive than they are Catholic.

The godfather of my littlest brother was a university professor who was notorious for standing outside the Student Union with pictures of aborted fetuses.

The university's chapter of NOW organized a protest against that man, but even though I disagreed with what he did, I wouldn't join the protest because of the family connection.

He would stand on corners all over town, with his graphic pictures.

Although my mother never stood out there herself, she allowed him to put my brother, then a very beautiful baby, on display.

"This is what you're killing!" He would scream, holding up the beautiful child that was my baby brother, to the cars passing by the local abortion clinic. Not understanding what's going on, my brother would squeal, and smile his toothless baby smile...a kind of cuteness that only babies and elderly people with no dentures could get away with.

That beautiful baby boy is in jail now, and he's facing several counts of grand theft auto, debit card fraud, and grand larceny in four different states.

He was born to a cruel, selfish, narcissistic woman who destroyed 4 lives by giving us life in the first place. She loved us until we were babies. But when we started to need her less, she'd pop out another one.

My other two siblings have drug addictions, minor run-ins with the law, an inability to stay in a living arrangement for very long, and self-induced problems at work.

As for me...well, I joined a cult, so that tells you something about my psychological well-being.

Those graphic pictures still haunt me.

But if there's any reason in this world that I'm going to hell, it's for thinking that all four of us would have been better off as one of the fetuses in the pictures.

I have a personal connexion with this issue -- my dad was a doctor (OB/GYN, GP, surgeon, forensic pathologist). He delivered thousands of babies. One day, he came home early when I had just returned home after school. He was very angry. He had delivered a baby whose mother was a twelve year old girl. She had been either raped or molested -- he didn't know which. I was the same age as this girl. My dad was from the American South and he let me know what he would do to someone if they ever did anything like that to me.

If we lived in a perfect world, there would be no need for abortions but we don't. Men want sex. You can't have a relationship with a man without participating. Contraceptive methods don't always work. Girls and women are raped. If you aren't ready to have a child it's a option.

Most Western countries don't have an abortion problem. China has a history of forced abortion for population control. Social pressure to have sons in India led to sex selective abortion and now there is a huge disparity in the male/female ratio.

It's her life and her decision.

Of course it is not!
Has nothing to do Men running the world. Woman should make the decision to keep the baby or abort it.

>so women have very little influence upon laws
That is right, if you live in Middle East, if you live in US as a women you have very little to bitch about.

This is exactly what life life is about; chances of good luck or really bad...
Because Universe doesn't give a hoot about life...

Edit; Especially a fetus which is thrown to the garbage by hundreds every day....
Just because you, Human developed couple Emigdelas which is laden with tons of emphaty, doesn't change any cruel facts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2015 09:38AM by quinlansolo.

No woman who wants to have a baby should ever be forced to "commit" abortion.

ozpoof Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What I have a problem with is abortion as birth
> control. I can't wrap my head around it.

Then don't use abortion as "birth control." Problem solved.

> Is acceptance of open-slather abortion always a
> progressive idea?

I would say the "progressive idea" is that each woman has the right to make her own decisions about her own body, including any developing embryo in it. So your reservations are valid, and yours, and you get to use them to make your own choices. Other women get the same right, even if their conclusions differ from yours. That's the "progressive idea."

What about a 13 year old, raped by her uncle? Is she allowed to have an abortion?

I think about this every day, as does my wife, who is a nurse at Planned Parenthood. Yes, people make decisions we don't agree with.

I also think it is damn near suicide for people to allow themselves to become grossly overweight and then expect society to pay for their diabetes and other weight related illnesses.

I could go on, but I would ask you all to not judge until you have really been in the trenches and seen what goes on.

By the way, they do get protesters, but not like the people screaming at patients.

Oh, one more by the way - abortions are performed at Primary Childrens, which is owned by IHC, which is partially supported by the LDS church (used to be owned by). So, if you donate money to the LDS church, like all good temple goers, then you are, at least to some extent, paying for abortions, which is cause for excommunication. A bit of a double bind.

End of rant.

I'm really offended by your comment about diabetes.

Diabetes and obesity do not run in my family.

However, I was diagnosed with having diabetes because of a combination of an eating disorder and a sudden illness.

I fought to not have diabetes for years and years even though the eating disorder was making things difficult. I think that if I hadn't of had the sudden illness, which ultimately kicked in the diabetes, I don't think I would have gotten it. The eating disorder didn't help though.

I'm now in treatment with a therapist, an endocrinologist, and a dietician, and my numbers are excellent. If things are continue to go the way they've been going, I should be off the insulin in six months or so. But I'm pretty much always going to have to take pills.

It is my personal view, and I would not force that view on women that are facing the issue.

I don't have a uterus, but I do, rightfully, have an opinion on the subject.

What I do not have is the right to *force* that opinion onto someone else.

I can and do join the discussion regarding the reduction of abortions. I do this by trying to discourage practices that lead to unwanted babies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2015 11:57AM by MJ.

You have a hard time with it? "YOU" have a hard time with it?

A pregnant woman has a few choices.......

1) Have the baby and care for it.
2) Have the baby and give it up to someone else to care for.
3) Abort the baby.

Each of these is a life altering choice, one that will have to be lived with for the rest of that womans life. Any one of those choices could prove too much to handle in life for some people.

The woman making the choice is the ONLY one that has a hard time with it.

Everyone else gets the easy part.....just accept that its her choice and move on.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2015 11:53AM by MJ.

My physician FIL was opposed to legalized abortion until he came across women who had horrible back alley abortions, back in the 40s. Making abortion illegal doesn't stop abortions from happening.

I think assuming women who get pregnant are using abortion as birth control is a huge stretch. Birth control fails, no matter how consistently it is used, and not all women can use more effective methods.

While I don't think anyone takes abortion lightly, the existence of a fetus doesn't trump the rights of an adult woman, which is what making abortion illegal does.

Anti-choice people always trot out adoption as a "cure" for abortion. As a mother through adoption, this makes my blood boil. There is a huge stigma attached to placing a child for adoption, and enormous pressure on a woman with an unwanted pregnancy to parent. Making abortion illegal won't change that, but will result in more women raising children they don't want. I think every child deserves be a wanted child.

Your death penalty analogy is a total fail. Many criminals don't receive the death penalty. Nobody is forced to do anything to the criminal.

The person best qualified to make the decision about whether or not to have an abortion is the woman in question. It's not me, it's not you, it's not some right wing gynotician running for office.

To answer your question, if you really think women should be legally prohibited from making decisions about their own bodies, then yeah, not progressive.