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Exactly, you THINK it's irrelevant whether the fetus is a life or not. I disagree. But it's obvious that it doesn't "factor into" your views on abortion. Easy to do anything when you simply do not think about the downside. And the line I'm drawing is not arbitrary at all. Pulse (heartbeat), breathing, and neurological activity are the official three signs of life. If you spot an unconscious man lying on the beach, you check if they're breathing, you check their pulse, and later a hospital checks for brain activity before declaring him dead.
It isn't that I'm dismissing personhood to make my own cold, callous views feel okay, it's that it just doesn't matter. When someone or something intrudes upon you, you don't stop and consider their life and whether or not you have a right to end theirs in the protection of your own, you do what must be done.
Alright, you want to know if the fetus is breathing, let's have out with it and let it have a go. If a thing can live only when biologically attached to another, independent living thing, then I'm not sure that really counts as living.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
It's consent to taking the known risks of getting pregnant, how's that? Either way, it's enough difference between abortion and the scenario I was presented with.
And when such risks are realized, we take necessary actions to rectify them. Or would you refuse medicine to a person who contracts chlamydia because they knew the risks when they engaged in sexual activity?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
I'm not arguing for abortion to be illegal. I'm arguing for abortion to be discouraged.
And if I say to a woman "You should have the baby and raise it because it's an indescribable blessing", then she says "Not necessarily, not for everyone", I can respond with "Spoken like a woman who has never experienced this blessing"?
The fact is, it's nine months - and considerably less than that for many who are considering late-term abortions. Nine months at max to deal with the consequences of getting an unwanted pregnancy, ending with the pains of labor (which I am not underestimating in any way). Then if (IF) a woman is still sure she doesn't want to raise a child, she can give it up for adoption, giving some hopeful prospective parents out there a chance at the blessing you are taking for granted, in addition to saving a life.
The fact that you think of pregnancy as a minor inconvenience followed by brief pain and, poof, everything is fine just shows what little regard you have for women. Having a baby, even if you give it up as soon as it's born, isn't just a 9 month process. There are physical, emotional, financial, psychological, hormonal, and social consequences that she's already gotten a taste of while carrying that "minor inconvenience" and those issues don't disappear when the bump goes away.
You view women as nothing but incubators who should just shut up and wait it out.
Ah boo hoo! You were not inconvenienced enough to have those few moments of pleasure. If it was unprotected, and you got pregnant, your dumb. If it was protected and the protection failed, sorry about your luck.
If you're married and have decided not to have children, use protection and then you get pregnant, again sorry about your luck. Put the baby up for adoption, simple as that. (I'm using "you" loosely, not talking about you personally.)
I feel a lot more comfortable answering you in this manner now that I know that you're only 16 and have no real life experience.
At 16, you have never supported yourself. You have never had to pay a medical bill. You don't have to pay to keep a roof over your head, clothes on your back, anything. You have no real concept of money. That's not your fault - you aren't old enough to have experienced these things. These things are expensive. Your lack of experience is a big reason why your peers who find themselves pregnant need to have abortion as an option.
You have never really been in the working world. You have never faced the career ramifications of being pregnant - particularly being young, unmarried, and pregnant. These ramifications make it increasingly more difficult to afford care for yourself properly while pregnant - even with adoption.
I spent the past year facing down cancer at 23. Had I been pregnant (by choice or not) when I was diagnosed, I would have needed to have an abortion. My oncologist would have refused me as a patient otherwise. From diagnosis to starting chemo, I had 1 month. There wasn't even enough time to do fertility treatment before I needed treatment. When I started, my tumors were squeezing my heart, lungs, and esophagus. I would have had tops 2 months without immediate treatment.
It's not uncommon to be diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. Most young adult cancers are not screenable or detectable until in their late stages so pregnancy is the first time these woman are really being monitored intensely. I was stage IV and had minimal symptoms. Some women choose to forgo treatment in order to have the baby. Others are on chemo regimes that can safely be taken while pregnant. Still others, several of whom I know, were forced to abort in order to save their own lives.
IT IS A DECISION BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND THE PATIENT.
Today, I am 4 months out of chemo. If I was to become pregnant, I would be a high risk pregnancy. My oncologist told me that if I was to become pregnant in the 3 years following treatment, I would either need to have an abortion or find another doctor. If I was to carry out a pregnancy any time soon, I would need to be on bedrest for the entirety of the pregnancy. Where would my income come from? How do you feel about your tax dollars supporting the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to keep me alive to carry a child? Or the damage from pregnancy that would take years for my already broken body to recover from?
Adoption is not a solution in cases such as mine and many other women. I take precautions, but I just survived a life threatening disease that almost killed me - I would laugh in your face if you told me I could not be intimate with my boyfriend just as several of my survivor friends would laugh if you told them they could not be intimate with their husbands because an accidental pregnancy would inevitably lead to an abortion for health reasons.
I am also a rape survivor. When I was only a year older than you, I became pregnant due to a rape. I miscarried. I feel not an ounce of guilt, just as I would not feel guilt had I not miscarried and was forced to abort.
I am an extreme scenario, but pregnancy is a whole lot more than an inconvenience.
Except that they are no pro-life, they are anti-choice. A pro-life person would be opposed to death penalties.
you are so right, it isn't about being pro life it is about being anti choice. after all women are too stupid to know what they want to do with their own bodies someone else should tell them what to do.
Banning abortion, along with infanticide, is a way men control women to keep them subservient.
A way for a woman to control her own body and subsequently her destiny.
A woman's choice.
Necessary pest control.
women should be punished for having sex and getting pregnant, they made their bed now should lay in it. abortion is a moral choice made by others who want to impose theirs on other women.
The issue is not really whether it is alive or dead; the issue is when it becomes a person. A fetus who has little more than a limbic brain is not yet a person; they have no higher brain function. That begins to happen as the rest of the body is finalizing its development. Roe v. Wade attempted to draw that line at the earliest point they could figure a fetus starts becoming a person and not just an unthinking live object residing inside a host.
Roe v. Wade had nothing to do with when a fetus becomes a person. It had everything to do with medical technology at the time being able to sustain potential life outside the womb, 'viability.' The same court logic decided today could place 'viability' several weeks earlier than in 1973. If somehow medical knowledge and technology advances further, who knows, abortion on demand might end after 5, 4, or even fewer months. Choicers won't be too happy with Roe if that happens.
I feel a lot more comfortable answering you in this manner now that I know that you're only 16 and have no real life experience.
At 16, you have never supported yourself. You have never had to pay a medical bill. You don't have to pay to keep a roof over your head, clothes on your back, anything. You have no real concept of money. That's not your fault - you aren't old enough to have experienced these things. These things are expensive. Your lack of experience is a big reason why your peers who find themselves pregnant need to have abortion as an option.
You have never really been in the working world. You have never faced the career ramifications of being pregnant - particularly being young, unmarried, and pregnant. These ramifications make it increasingly more difficult to afford care for yourself properly while pregnant - even with adoption.
I spent the past year facing down cancer at 23. Had I been pregnant (by choice or not) when I was diagnosed, I would have needed to have an abortion. My oncologist would have refused me as a patient otherwise. From diagnosis to starting chemo, I had 1 month. There wasn't even enough time to do fertility treatment before I needed treatment. When I started, my tumors were squeezing my heart, lungs, and esophagus. I would have had tops 2 months without immediate treatment.
It's not uncommon to be diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. Most young adult cancers are not screenable or detectable until in their late stages so pregnancy is the first time these woman are really being monitored intensely. I was stage IV and had minimal symptoms. Some women choose to forgo treatment in order to have the baby. Others are on chemo regimes that can safely be taken while pregnant. Still others, several of whom I know, were forced to abort in order to save their own lives.
IT IS A DECISION BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND THE PATIENT.
Today, I am 4 months out of chemo. If I was to become pregnant, I would be a high risk pregnancy. My oncologist told me that if I was to become pregnant in the 3 years following treatment, I would either need to have an abortion or find another doctor. If I was to carry out a pregnancy any time soon, I would need to be on bedrest for the entirety of the pregnancy. Where would my income come from? How do you feel about your tax dollars supporting the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to keep me alive to carry a child? Or the damage from pregnancy that would take years for my already broken body to recover from?
Adoption is not a solution in cases such as mine and many other women. I take precautions, but I just survived a life threatening disease that almost killed me - I would laugh in your face if you told me I could not be intimate with my boyfriend just as several of my survivor friends would laugh if you told them they could not be intimate with their husbands because an accidental pregnancy would inevitably lead to an abortion for health reasons.
I am also a rape survivor. When I was only a year older than you, I became pregnant due to a rape. I miscarried. I feel not an ounce of guilt, just as I would not feel guilt had I not miscarried and was forced to abort.
I am an extreme scenario, but pregnancy is a whole lot more than an inconvenience.
+1 I can't rep you again, charol, but I wanted to tell you how much I liked this post.
Roe v. Wade had nothing to do with when a fetus becomes a person. It had everything to do with medical technology at the time being able to sustain potential life outside the womb, 'viability.' The same court logic decided today could place 'viability' several weeks earlier than in 1973. If somehow medical knowledge and technology advances further, who knows, abortion on demand might end after 5, 4, or even fewer months. Choicers won't be too happy with Roe if that happens.
Same-same. A "person" who can't live without being physically attached to another person isn't really an independent being - i.e., a person. Viability is just another word for personhood, in this instance. Once you become viable - able to live without a womb - you are your own person, and you then have human rights. Up until then, the person who is 100% supporting you by physical attachment has human rights that supersede yours.
+1 I can't rep you again, charol, but I wanted to tell you how much I liked this post.
Thanks! It's easy to say "I don't believe in abortion in any case" when you are insulated in your own healthy world free of abuse where you are either supported by your parents or have been in the working world long enough to live comfortably. As someone who is neither healthy nor been working long enough to live comfortably without counting every penny, it's an entirely different world.
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I can't rep you again, charol, but I wanted to tell you how much I liked this post.
