jpwright

I thought it would be a good idea for those who take a strong stance on either side to briefly explain what their thoughts are on the issue of abortion, their reasoning behind their thoughts, and why they feel this way morally. If anything, this should not be another name-calling debate, this is for debating the pure facts and statistics only... So, I'll start.

I'm prochoice, and for several reasons. For me, the issue of abortion comes down to the question of "Why not?" rather than "Why do it?". After all, a woman has a right to decide whether or not to have a baby, and to take away that right after conception but many months before birth seems rather unreasonable. So as long as I see that the attacks against abortion are untrue, then I will maintain my position on the issue. That being said, there are a few significant problems with the pro-life stance.

First, there's no scientific backing. Many anti-abortionists will speak as if each fetus is capable of deciding whether or not it wants to live, and is crying out in vain to its mother before she aborts the fetus. In reality, human sex cells are really much like simple body cells during the early stages of pregnancy. At that point, you might as well go around arresting people for using condoms since those sperm are each potential babies that have now been illegally murdered. Shock and awe. The question often racks my brain - when will anti-abortionists get it through their heads that fetuses are just cells? They're not babies. A fetus becomes a baby at birth. If I had a dollar for every time someone like this purposely called a 'fetus' a 'baby', I'd be rich. Life begins at birth. Life begins with the baby's first breath. Not when sperm meets egg - that's a scientific process.

Second, there's no moral backing. There is a BIG difference between a mother killing a 7 year old son because he wouldn't clean his room or was late to baseball practice and a mother aborting a fetus that has been in development for only a few weeks. Abortion wouldn't be so easy if it was 'baby-killing'. In many cases, first-time mothers find that their first pregnancy fails, due to either failure of the sperm to penetrate the egg, inability to cross through into the uterus, or failure for the zygote to successfully land in the uterus lining. Why don't anti-abortionists write news articles about the sad death of Mr. and Mrs. Doe's poor child who was killed in the inner linings of the uterus? An abortion is pretty much the same thing. It's not baby-killing, and it's not a crime.

Third, there's no social backing. I highly doubt anyone who goes through the horrible process of pregnancy through rape would enjoy having to be forced to continue with the pregnancy. I know, there are stories of mothers who were raped and kept the child and are quite happy, but that's still no reason to force everyone to live like that. The child might not be happy, the mother might not be happy, and overall pregnancies through rape can lead to dysfunctional families - let's face it, rapists are hardly good fathers. It's a constitutional and human right, not an act of murder on the part of mothers.

Either way, I think it's dumb that we have ivory tower male politicians up there voting for us who have never and never will* go through pregnancy and never will really experience the usefulness of the process of abortion and why so many would-be mothers strive to make that choice.



* Unless you're into male pregnancy, but... that's kind of a different story...

AdornedImperious

i'll first consider some of the first post's points and then add some more that i think are important.

first, it's correct that there is no "scientific backing"- for EITHER position. it is not the place of science to define what being "alive" (or, more specifically, a "person") is- it is in essence a value judgment, and, at least from a scientific perspective, an arbitrary one. thus, anyone who claims life begins at conception are not making an objective statement.

HOWEVER, the same goes for people that say life begins at the first breath. is it really breathing that makes something human? a beating heart? i don't think so. a fetus is a "live person" in the sense that it is comprised of cells which contain human DNA and which are dividing- but there IS a qualitative difference between a fetus and you and i; as the poster mentioned, a fetus is not autonomous (its survival is dependent on the mother's body) and seems not to "think" for itself (though this point, i think, is also outside the purview of science, and is even debatable philosophically).

That said, there are important moral differences which make terminating a pregnancy different than causing the death of your mother or the drug dealer across the street. The most important of these is the one i mentioned above- it IS objectively true that the fetus depends on the environment of the uterus to develop to the point at which it is viable- on nutrients and immunological protection provided by the mother. it is also true that pregnancy is very taxing and potentially threatening to the life and health of a woman. because of this, i think there is a moral justification for the right of the mother to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.

All of these considerations, however, are really of little importance in deciding what the LEGAL status of abortion should be, except that in a free society one is free to decide for themselves, subjectively of course, what constitutes personhood in the womb and the circumstances under which it is morally acceptable to terminate a pregnancy (thus, "choice"). Here i think that the place of law is to ensure that, should someone determine that they would like to terminate pregnancy, safe means are available by which to do it.

The state cannot prevent a woman from wanting an abortion- and the thought that banning abortion will completely stop it is simply naive and false (before our current knowledge developed regarding pregnancy and medicine and general, women took formulations containing lead and arsenic to induce miscarriage, and many died as a result; there are also the "coat-hanger" abortions which are often cited).

Another reason why abortion will not ever be banned based on objective legal reasoning is one i stated above: every pregnancy carries with it health risks. There are many different conditions arising during pregnancy (preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, for instance) which are very often fatal if pregnancy is continued. I don't think that anyone would argue that a woman must keep her pregnancy when doing so will cause death to herself and the fetus. Since it is simply a fact that our medical knowledge is not complete, that is, that there is a finite probablity at any time during pregnancy that a life-threatening condition could develop as a result of it, and in all cases pregnancy is a profound burden on the mother, any attempt to ban abortion except "to save the life of the mother" will draw a line at a point which is arbitrary and which will inevitably result in cases at which medical judgment is incorrect and the mother is seriously injured or dies.

To sum up my feelings on the issue, I don't think that anyone can claim their position on abortion to be morally superior to anyone else's- it is based, essentially, on what one defines subjectively to be a person based on his or her values and convictions. However, I don't think that anyone thinks that abortion is a good thing- nobody gets pregnant for the reason of having an abortion, and the procedure itself does carry some risk and is emotionally taxing on the woman.

The state has an interest in keeping the number of safe abortions low- abortions are expensive, and preventable- if everyone used birth control at every time except when they desire to become pregnant, the abortion rate would be only dependent on the failure rate of contraception plus the rate of development of life-threatening conditions during pregnancy. doctors don't like to perform abortions, and their time is better spent with other matters.

I think that the best way to address the issue of abortion is to address the conditions which lead to the decision to terminate pregnancy- the most important of which are poverty, poor health/sex education, lack of health care access and the availability of contraception. The biggest obstacle to addressing the issue is the fact that most right-to-life people are also against contraception and birth control.

stsburns

I do not believe it should be a "Right". It's a service that targets teenager girls that have sex early on in life, and continue it with every partner they meet. Why else would the "Pro-Abortion" politicians try to push bills limiting parents to any knowledge that their child has had an Abortion. Also "Pro-Abortion" politicians fail to mention that it is a dangerous procedure. Even though media rarely shines light on the subject, you will see reports of people dieing during an "Abortion" procedure. To conclude my post, I believe it should not be a Right, it should be a privilege to the few. And only certain instances, in which it will save the mothers life. It should not be used for "Teenage Birth Control", but hey I dont make the Laws.

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jpwright

A valid point. Of course whether or not a fetus is alive is a subject of heavy debate, and there really is no definite truth to the question. So really, as long as we agree that a baby is alive once it comes out of the womb regardless of whether or not it is alive prior to that point, then the only time we KNOW it's probably wrong to kill the baby is after birth. Without scientific backing to extend the "cut-off point" before birth, to me it comes off as another religious leap of faith that I simply don't feel right believing in without factual proof.

Of course, you could also argue that a young baby is physically dependant and immunologically dependant (medicines, etc) on the mother during the first few months. Because of this, I don't consider physical dependancy a reason to justify abortion.

Sadly in this society it's impossible to decide how far the law should go regarding moral issues. Pro-abortionists often scream that some dangers during pregnancy are reason to ban it while ignoring the dangers of unwanted pregnancy as well, something which abortion can solve for.

Exactly. When science proves that the fetus and the mother will die if pregnancy will continue, the sad truth is some feel that the pregnancy should still continue. It comes down to this - either the mom and fetus die due to some fanatacism, or the fetus dies in a process with which the mother has nothing to lose.

Naturally my position in my previous post was to explain why the pro-life stance's claim of moral superiority fails.

And of course whether or not to have an abortion depends entirely on the situation and the individual pregnancy. Either way it's still better to allow abortions in the case they are needed rather than blindly ban them without first examining the situation.

Good post, by the way.

Connecticutter

I'd say I'm pro-choice, but I take this in moderation. I think that people need a good degree of soveregnty over what happens in their own body. However, I prefer that abortions occur early, perhaps in limited to the first trimester.

Is this arbitrary? Yes. But I don't see a better way. We can let fetuses get killed right up until birth, that would violate the right to life. If we outlaw abortion altogether, we are not only invading a women's right to choose - but it will lead to a strong black-market abortion industry that will be a menace to our society.

I agreed with Bush, BTW, when he baned foreign aid that goes to abortion. We shouldn't pay for anyone's abortion. Particularly when a solid fracion of taxpayers believe its murder. And for those people who get pregnant because of their own carelessness - is it too much to ask to pay for the abortion yourself?

Locke10

I don't think that us men should even be arguing about this topic. Whether we agree or not, its more of a thing for the women to decide. Let them do what they want with their body.

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aquapub

The unborn are provably human by their DNA-as if we really need to pretend we don't know what that is growing inside a woman after conception.

Every excuse liberals use to justify killing these people is inconsistent with every other murder law on our books. There is zero logic to the pro-abortionist side.

Blacks were once enslaved because these same kind of people (the very same kind of people-Democrats-in fact) dehumanized them into having no rights.

Your body your business? BS. Tell that to the FDA. Who you kill IS the government's business.

Kid will grow up unwanted and end up a criminal? We could virtually eliminate all crime by killing all poor people. The ends don't justify the means.

Think about it. There is no actual justification for it. The pro-abortionist's entire argument rests on simply not caring about these people. It is assinine.

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ShamMol

You might be surprised to know that I agree with you. The DNA tests as human. But that doesn't make it a being.
That is a horrible, horrible comment. I can't say any more than that, except you must be a very bad person to have said that.

I will post my opinion on abortion tomorrow, for now, I am tired and must proceed to enter my cave...I mean bed.

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GetVictd

So it's only life if the mother chooses it to be? What if my son impregnates his wife and she wants/sneaks off to have an abortion? Won't my son be just as guilty (irresponsible?) or will this woman have just murdered my son's child?

galenrox

Well she won't have murdered anything. Abortion is completely legal, and there is no scientific concensus on whether or not a fetus is a human life, or anything more than our equivalent of a larva.
And if she sneaks off and gets an abortion, it would allude to your son's marriage isn't doing to hot, and they're probably not in a stable enough environment to raise a child, considering she felt the need to sneak off, and not come to him to talk about it, so perhaps an abortion would be best in that case.
It's only life if the mother chooses to let it become life. If she wants that fetus to become a child, she has the ability (barring a miscarriage), but she has the choice to get rid of it before it becomes a life too.

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