The topic of Abortion
 

Ok, since in the Political Palace there is a thread on the South Dakota ban of abortion, I wanted to start a thread in the Quiet Place on the GFF opinions of abortion in general.

What is your opinion on abortions and when is it "okay" to have one?

Please discuss. I'm a little curious about this topic.

My coworker Erin got pregnant as the result of a rape 3 years ago. Abortion is OK there.

I would say only when it endangers the mother's life.

Like Minion and Dopefish I think it would allowed in casa of rape or if the mother´s life is in a dangerous situation, in another case the people need to assume their attitudes and think before having done.

I think abortion should be legal, but only up to a certain point. Although I am not one to say when life begins in a fetus, I think a good starting point would be when the heart begins to beat. It is simple to measure, and most people would agree soemthing with a beating heart is alive. Anytime before the heart start to beat, an abortion should be legal.

A lot of people who get abortions do so because they do not want to be reponsible for their own actions. The captain of the cheerleading team sleeps around, and then finds out, much to her dismay, that she is pregnant. Obviously, this would be terribly inconvenient for her, for not only would it put a huge damper on her perfect life, but her reputation will be ruined. Obviously, the only logical recourse is to get rid of the baby. Abortion clinic here she comes.

This is purely fiction, but in a more generalized perspective, this is what goes on in regards to abortion in America.

People act in a liscentious and unwise manner, and then try to not have to deal with the consequences.

Granted, there are SOME instances where an abortion could be considered "okay," such as rape babies, or children where the life of the mother is threatened... but this market is in short supply, and not reliable enough to depend on as an income source.
They encourage people to be sexually loose, so that the abortion clinics can make a killing (pun intended) off of these people.

Social engineering anyone?

This is why there are so many groups active in defending "a women's right to choose." Because they want a cut of the cash pie. I guarantee that abortion clinics pay some hefty dues to various groups to defend them.

I think abortion is alright in the case of saving the mother's life, or if the mother was a rape victim.

Other than that, stick it out and have the baby adopted.

Also, making abortion illegal will not fix anything. In fact, I would think it would make things much worse.

Unfortunately, you might be right.
The problem now is that society has become dependent upon abortion clinics, and it doesn't look like America is going to steer any farther from hedonism that it usually does.

However, I DO think that by making abortions illegal, it will significantly reduce the number of abortions performed. The catch is that it would just make them more dangerous to perform, since they will have to be done underground.
One would hope that by making it illegal, people would think twice about having regular sex... but this probably will not be the case.
Damn the coinsequences, they just want sex.

Are you asking a joke or a serious question?

Then that requires some explanation on your part. Do you honestly need an explanation about the ethical, physical and emotional differences between consentual sexual intercourse and forced sexual intercourse?

You're right; "in all but the most extreme pro-life™ viewpoint" a fetus is a fetus.

I'm glad, then, that we don't live in a world where everything is black and white.

I really only see abortion as "okay" if having the child would endanger the mother's life and in cases where a pregnant woman finds out that her baby has a horrible genetic disease or something. For example, if I were in the position to choose, I would never bring a child with something like Tay Sachs into the world. I believe that abortion is the lesser of two evils in a situation like that.

Actually, Yama, you have a good point, and one that I had been wondering about for a long time.
It is not actually an extreme view of pro-lifers to also try and protect the lives of those born of rape. It just is not very diplomatic enough to warrant any mention right now. The thing is, the common perception (of non-prolifers) of children is that they are a "burden," or "punishment," or other such words with negative connotations, not as living beings worthy of life, no matter how terrible their origins.
The reason that people usually allow concessions for rape is because the main argument for abortion is that a woman has a "right to choose," and if sex was forced upon her, she was not allowed to choose, but instead her rights were violated.
I suppose one could sum it up like: "She is to not be held responsible for crimes she did not commit."

Here's one for you: what if a man was raped and the woman got pregnant because of it? Then whose choice would it be to abort the pregnancy?

There is legal precedence in this matter...I'm just too lazy to find it. All I know is a woman raped a man, got pregnant, and the courts forced an abortion. What do you make of the ethical and legal rights of the woman in that case? Abortion is a dangerous procedure and can sometimes put the mother in even more harm...do the ends justify the means in that scenario?

I find it awfully odd that the courts forced an abortion.
Was it at the behest of the victim?
(need more details)

You're gonna make me look...grr.

Edit: for the moment, ignore what I said about court-ordered abortions. I seem to recall a case like that but can't find any info on Google or Wikipedia.

Meh. Take your time. There is no hurry.
This is the quiet place. You can get back to me what I wake up. :p

Chances are slim I'll find it.

I've always been pro-choice because of some very good reasons.

Yes, there is the option to adopt but when the kid finds out he or she was adopted, imagine the mental anguish they could go through. "What was wrong with me" or something like that. Or in extreme cases "YOU'RE NOT MY PARENTS".

Also, the infamous "dumpster babies" where the mother never wanted the kid in the first place, where does it go? The dumpster.

so if abortions were illegal, do you think there would be more "dumpster babies"

Aside from Underground abortions (cause you know it would happen) I'm sure there would be, not to mention more depressed kids that found out they were adopted.

i would rather an adopted child go through therapy to get through depression then have a mother decide to end its life before it even has a life

That's very profound.

The innate problem with the topic of abortion is the split issue between the two clans.
It is possible to be both pro-life and pro-choice. The problem is, as a result of an underlying problem of the argument, pro-choicers are viewed as babykillers and pro-lifers are viewed as wanting more gov't control. This is obviously not the case, but some fanatics (those DAMN fanatics) play it out as such.
I think that life is sacred and begins when the mother becomes aware of the baby because it is at that point that the Mother must make a decision about the baby if she's in a situation where a decision is warranted.
Adoption is always a better option, and I believe more should be done about making this option more viable and easier to deal with, while also focusing more on the largely ignored portion of this discussion that is foster care and the overwhelmingly large population of parentless children.
By making it illegal you run the risk of underground abortions, which has already been discussed. It should be an option for exceptions already discussed to get a medically safe procedure to abort the baby.
The government should never really be involved in governing such a personal experience as child birth. I've run into people that argue that the FDA already controls what we eat and medicate ourselves with, and as a gov't entity therefore have control over us. Still, very few gov't order such surgical proceedings (pending the court case decision that was brought up).
In any case, it should be the woman's choice, but major steps should be taken to educate any woman about her options. Some will always seek abortion, unfortunately, and to simply deny them that (especially in the exceptional cases) simply based on a supposed moral high ground is abhorrent and abominable.

If all this is too much, just watch the milk dance :milk:

I guess, then, that you never masturbate. Are you against that as well? Or maybe sex without getting knocked up? You'd be "ending" the egg or sperm's life "before it even has a life."

I don't understand the logic of the pro-lifers. I really don't know what they base their opinions on, and they seem to be more or less an emotional reaction to a fetus.

I think it would be pretty easy for me to pull the switch on a parasite in my body. (Because thats what it is, you realize.)

I'll be damned if the government, a man, or anyone else tells me what to do with my body and my fetus. No one has the right to tell me how I deal with my own body. I am not harming you - why don't you just stay out of my business. I don't need someone to shove their unbased opinions in my face, telling me how I should think and what I should feel.

I'm a grown woman. I can do that pretty well.

Sass, most would say that an egg or sperm can never be a human life as it can never develop into a human on its own without it's counterpart. However, I think this best describes my personal feelings and thoughts on this subject.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5.../deadhorse.gif

edit; too many damn grammar errors.

I side with Robo Jesus. There is no winning this argument. All abortion debates end with both sides shouting at each other to no avail, because there's just no way to achieve consensus on the subject. Either you believe life begins at conception or you don't. It's a matter of faith (depsite how much the anti-abortionists try to insist it's fact) and you cannot change someone's faith with mere words alone.

I think abortion is ok if you think that you`re not ready to have a kid. Be it a financial issue or just simply the fact that you think you`re not ready to be a parent, abortion is a valid option in my opinion. As cruel as it might sound, I think that if you`re not able to give your child a good life then the best choice might actually be not giving it a life at all. It just wasn`t supposed to be. The same goes for rape victims and people who just plain mess up. Although I don`t think that a person who gets knocked up/knocks someone up because she/he was too lazy to use preventive measures before having sex deserves to have an abortion, they shouldn`t be prevented to do so if they didn`t intend to bring a child to this world in the first place.

I just don`t see abortion as murder.

I'm kind of undecided on this topic. On one side, i think abortion is ok at a certain stage in pregnancy (personaly i think it should be lower than it already is) because then it doesn't kill a nearly developed human being. I also think it's acceptable depending on who the person. If the child is the result of a one night stand and the mother won't be able to cope with a child or she's pretty messed up or whatever, then abortion is an option at an early stage.

However, i'm against it in the sense that, it is killing a potential human life and it's just a nasty thing to do. I mean, it's all very well for me to say 'If you don't want the child, then just have it adopted when it arrives' but it's not that simple.

I'm not really for or against it

I have said this in previous threads, and I guess I will state it again:
The primary issue here is where does human life begin?

Like Sass poignantly voiced, she obviously doesn't think a baby gestating is anything more than a parasite. Obviously, she does not consider an unborn baby to be human.
And then there are the pro-lifers who say that a human life begins as soon as you have a fertilized embryo, and the rest is up to fate, or God, or whatever, and the decision about what happens to that life is ethically not our own anymore.

So anyways, new direction to steer this thread:
Where/when does life begin, AND WHY?

Your Life is not to be determined by other people. No one else can say when Life begins but you. You may be breathing, walking, and alive, but is that really Life?

My sister, who happened to be a Christian, tell me this as food for thought: In a debate, a scientist stated that the life, indeed began as conception, the problem is, can you considered the cells which is now being set in motion by a series of biological programing to be human? Or should we equate those cell to be a developed human baby? And at what point, do a group of cell is human, that's the question. The fact of matter is, we do not hold all life at the same values, we only give value to them because they happend to be human.

And here I am, throwing in something else, how about embryos, that has received an specific engineered biological instruction not to become fully developed? Do you considered this embryo to be human also?

I have gone through the whole process. I'm pro-choice but it's not something that I have gone through and that I'm proud off. It's up to the person whether or not they decide to go for it but you have to take every option into mind.

And you have to get yourself mentally ready for it because it will fuck you up mentally and emotionally. I haven't been the same since it happened.

I think abortion should stay legal, rape and the health of the mother are the number one reasons, however there are others.

Not all abortions happen because the mother wants to do it. The first ultrasound can tell more than just the baby's gender, it can detect things like a birth defect that will give the child a very low quality of life (like a vegetative state for example) and sometimes the baby's health could be so poor, it could be a still-born. It is a tough situation, but many mothers do go through an abortion in that case.

Abortion can be done right. When the fetus is developed enough to be called a baby, then I do not think a abortion is the way to go if both the baby and mother are healthy, the mother can always put it up for adoption, however in the first trimester, especially in the first two months I do not see anything wrong with a abortion whatever the reason.

I’ll probably be attacked for saying this, but to me, a embryo is not a baby, a fetus in the first month or two is not a baby either, it is a group of living cells like a plant, that can grow to me more, unless you pick it. It is the same as a egg is not a chicken… but it CAN become one, and a blueprint is not a building… but it can if you work on it.

I also look at the fact that if Mary Sue next door wants an abortion, then that is up to her alone, it’s got nothing to do with me or the rest of the community. That is why I grumble at all the ‘pro-life’ activists, they don’t know the reasons why some mothers get abortions, nor should they care because it’s got nothing to do with them. If the pro-life activist get their way, that means a lot of unwanted or unhealthy children will be born, also some women and teenage girls lives will be at great risk depending on the complications they have with the pregnancy. They should also think about the unwanted children, some parents will accept the fact and become good parents, but that isn’t always the case, other unwanted kids will be treated differently and in some cases… abused, (That is my look on how they are treated, I really wish I had some accurate statistics to go on)

Strangely, I don't see the majority of pro-lifers lining up to adopt all those unwanted kids. Funny how the kids stop mattering the second they pop out of the womb and lose fetus status.

It's easy to pontificate when it doesn't involve investing one iota of personal commitment or responsibility. Maybe that should be the trade-off for this whole abortion-banning thing. Pro-lifers want to ban abortions? Then require every one of them to adopt at least one of those rape-or-incest babies they're so dead-set on forcing women to carry to term.

I don't really like scrambled eggs, but it's not a huge deal to me if my neighbor does.