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I used to be against abortion in all situations. These days, I think abortions in the first trimester should remain legal. Several factors changed my mind.
1) When a person's heart stops beating, we declare them dead. So how can an egg that is fertilized and does not yet have a heart be considered a human?
2) When a person's brain activity stops, we declare them dead, so again, how can a fertilized egg with no brain activity be considered a human?
3) I knew a woman in our church who froze her eggs. This was maybe 10 years ago and I'd never heard of any such thing. You can freeze a fertilized egg? Well apparently you can. So if a fertilized egg can be frozen and later used and implanted, how is that a human? We can't freeze humans.
So it would appear to me that a fertilized egg is not a human. It has the potential to become a human just as an apple seed has the potential to become an apple or an acorn has the potential to become a tree.
Sorry if I've offended. This is just my view for first trimester abortions only. Later in the pregnancy is a different story. And I totally agree w/ Nozz about reducing the need in the first place. I'd also say, we need more attention paid to what happens once these unwanted kids are in the world. Who is going to care for them? Are most people willing to see their taxes go up to pay for the government assistance and programs most of these kids will need? We can't just have the attitude of "as long as they are born" and then walk away and wash our hands.
I guess that was another thing that turned me off to a lot (not all) of the anti abortion crowd. They would say they cared about the children, yet I saw very little of them giving their time to kids in need or trying to adopt one of these unwanted children. It seemed to be more about punishing the woman who let herself get knocked up. The "she made her bed and now she has to lie in it" mentality that I personally find offensive.
It is not my place to decide. It is my opinion and I do not try to make anyone agree with my opinions. I urge all people to look at all views and make informed choices about what they decide.
I am pro-choice not anti-abortion. but I am under the opinion that there are very few situations in which an abortion is the best choice.
I disagree with your second paragraph.
In many cases, I am of the opinion, that abortion is absolutely the best choice.
I'd rather see child abusers, molesters, neglecting people, etc., abort than carry a fetus to term.
I think a better way for people to spend their time is looking at breeders who are guilty of abuse to already born humans, rather than make judgment on disposition of a clump of cells.
Alas linguistic games like this cloud the issue. We should be sitting down and hammering out definitions and intellectual arguments, not playing propaganda. This is not likely to happen however as the anti-choice side have long since realised they rarely come out of that debate well... not having any good arguments to put on the table.
They either use linguistic rhetoric or try to shock with pictures of the procedure. As if the prettiness of a medical procedure has any bearing on the morality of said procedure. Anyone here think a heart bypass is pleasant to watch for example merely has not seen one.
Actually that is the point of evoking medical jargon . . . to cloud the issue. That is what euphemisms do. They hide reality behind palatable conceptualizations. I am pro-choice . . . but not pro-deluded choice. The woman's right to procreate or abort is inviolable. But it is not psychologically healthy to pretend that it is just a "medical procedure" (not killing your own offspring).
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I see no moral issue with terminating a developing clump of cells before certain milestones in the development. I certainly see no moral problems with doing so before 16 weeks for example.
That goes both ways. Simply calling a fetus a baby does not magically turn it into one and therefore change the entire moral view of the matter. You are acting like only you can play with words, but no one else is allowed to. I call foul on both sides doing it. It is either human, or a developing human. It can not be both. You can not be X and be becoming X at the same time.
You called it a developing human, which means it is not human. So if you are going to play with words, careful you do not shoot yourself in the foot.
Absolute nonsense. We are ALL developing humans. We only stop being developing humans when we die. Again . . . I do not object to the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy . . . but this deceptive nonsense about what it IS has to stop. Young people especially tend to be notoriously unthinking and shallow as it is. Creating this euphemistic "medical procedure" gestalt . . . unfairly victimizes them when they are most psychologically vulnerable and irresponsible, IMO.
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Again, as I said above, the abortion debate is NOT about when it is "ok to kill babies". It IS about when it is sensible to call the clump of cells human/baby in a moral and rights based context.
It may be a philosophical question to debate . . . but pragmatically . . . it is far simpler. A child is developing within a mother who is choosing to terminate it. Every mother has and should retain that right, period.
It is not my place to decide. It is my opinion and I do not try to make anyone agree with my opinions. I urge all people to look at all views and make informed choices about what they decide.
I am pro-choice not anti-abortion. but I am under the opinion that there are very few situations in which an abortion is the best choice.
It was a rhetorical question.
When people make some circumstances excusable and other circumstances in excusable, I ask, who are they to decide on a woman's choice or her reasons behind that choice?
It is either legal or not. Some places late term abortions are legal, other places have a cut off date of 12 weeks. These are legal as determined by the country, State, whatever.
Ethically however, it is no-one else's business why a woman chooses an abortion. It is her decision alone and for whatever reason she decides. I don't see why she has to justify her decision to anyone and especially not to random strangers.
I disagree with your second paragraph.
In many cases, I am of the opinion, that abortion is absolutely the best choice.
I'd rather see child abusers, molesters, neglecting people, etc., abort than carry a fetus to term.
I think a better way for people to spend their time is looking at breeders who are guilty of abuse to already born humans, rather than make judgment on disposition of a clump of cells.
It is your right and obligation to disagree with me or any one you can not honestly agree with.
My disagreement over abortion and why I feel is is over used, is not over the issue of if a fetus is or is not a baby, but over the eventual impact it has on the woman. An abortion for any reason seems to be an eventual trigger for extreme depression in some older woman who suddenly experience extreme guilt feelings over the abortion. I have seen enough woman past the age of 40, to convince me that is a fairly common result.
I am not alone in that view:
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Some 41 percent of the more than 500 women in the study became pregnant by the age of 25 and 90 women had abortions.
Some 42 percent of the women who had abortions had experienced major depression within the last four years. That’s almost double the rate of women who never became pregnant. The risk of anxiety disorders also doubled.
Serious question but do you think that maybe some of the guilt from having an abortion comes from the righteousness of the pro life people constantly trying to shame them? Or maybe they say they feel guilty because they are afraid of sounding heartless and cold if they say they don't feel guilty? Or maybe they feel guilty for NOT feeling more guilty? Like something is wrong with them for not harboring this deep dark shame? Just a thought.
I think that most women who have had abortions are probably sad that they didn't do a better job of using birth control and wish they hadn't gotten pregnant in the first place. Not wishing they now had a teenager who is the product of Bubba's backseat.
Serious question but do you think that maybe some of the guilt from having an abortion comes from the righteousness of the pro life people constantly trying to shame them? Or maybe they say they feel guilty because they are afraid of sounding heartless and cold if they say they don't feel guilty? Or maybe they feel guilty for NOT feeling more guilty? Like something is wrong with them for not harboring this deep dark shame? Just a thought.
I think that most women who have had abortions are probably sad that they didn't do a better job of using birth control and wish they hadn't gotten pregnant in the first place. Not wishing they now had a teenager who is the product of Bubba's backseat.
It all comes down to the woman's own choice. I just hope they act with full knowledge and investigate all available choices.
I may be opposed to abortion but I am not against the rights of a woman to make her own decision.
On the whole issue of depression, I can only speak from my anticipated point of view. I am a 30-something woman contemplating pregnancy. The older I am when I become pregnant, the greater my risk of having a child with serious medical issues. Most people know this, which is why some (I don't know how many) women choose to have the fetus tested. (This would be the second trimester, by the way.) According to studies in 2002 in the U.S., at least 87% of women whose fetus tests positive for Downs Syndrome terminate the pregnancy. Source. I don't know the abortion rates for spina bifida or other serious conditions, but I would expect them to be high.
I would be deeply upset and depressed if I found out my child would suffer from these conditions. I believe, never having been in this position, that I would abort because my conscience wouldn't allow me to bring a child into the world to suffer. I would be devastated to have to make this decision, but I would have to make it. I would likely need therapy for the anger and the regret - not regret for aborting but regret for having to abort.
I think we all have to be careful about presuming too much about the women who do make/did make/will make the decision to abort.
On the whole issue of depression, I can only speak from my anticipated point of view. I am a 30-something woman contemplating pregnancy. The older I am when I become pregnant, the greater my risk of having a child with serious medical issues. Most people know this, which is why some (I don't know how many) women choose to have the fetus tested. (This would be the second trimester, by the way.) According to studies in 2002 in the U.S., at least 87% of women whose fetus tests positive for Downs Syndrome terminate the pregnancy. Source. I don't know the abortion rates for spina bifida or other serious conditions, but I would expect them to be high.
I would be deeply upset and depressed if I found out my child would suffer from these conditions. I believe, never having been in this position, that I would abort because my conscience wouldn't allow me to bring a child into the world to suffer. I would be devastated to have to make this decision, but I would have to make it. I would likely need therapy for the anger and the regret - not regret for aborting but regret for having to abort.
I think we all have to be careful about presuming too much about the women who do make/did make/will make the decision to abort.
This is precisely why it is nobody else's business but the mother, period. Society has no role in the decision and no right to impose sanctions on it.
This is precisely why it is nobody else's business but the mother, period. Society has no role in the decision and no right to impose sanctions on it.
Agreed.
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