Experts and users discuss abortion, womens rights: Should Abortion be Legal?
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Should Abortion be Legal?
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Legalize Abortion - it's a personal decision
Abortion is an issue that should be discussed between the mother and or father, not the public - government.
There are many questions to consider before one makes a decision - what is my financial situation? Do I have time to take care of my infant? Will my child be able to develop in a safe and healthy environment?
I am not arguing that women who are pregnant should not be responsible for their actions; however, sometimes incidents occur without planning. Since a crises has occured, the best thing to do is to face the situation - be realistic and ask ourselves these questions.
Rising a child takes time, care, and money. The infant deserves to be raised properly or they will not contribute to the society positively but to harm it and harm themselves.
- wendiland June 6, 2008 2:28PM
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Women have the right
A woman has the right to decide what happens inside her body. In the end making it illegal will only punish poor woman, as wealthy woman will always have the option of having an abortion.
- Ralph July 16, 2008 12:29AM
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1 maternal death = 3,613 child deaths
Quote from previous commenters: "...in 2002 alone there were 357 maternal deaths in the USA." It is true that indeed giving birth is NOT without its risks.
But successful abortion carries a 100% rate of risk of death to the child. And in contrast to the unfortunate 357 maternal deaths we see an unfortunate rate of almost 1.3 MILLION infant deaths in 2002 to abortion ( http://www.nrlc.org/ABORTION/facts/abortionstats.html ).
I suspect it is one's ego that is willing to value one life more than another... or one life more than 3,613 others.
In response to "A woman has a right over what happens inside her body," actually I believe what the previous commenter was trying to say was "A woman has the right over her own body." But science tells us that the child inside is not her body, but a completely different body and person. Common sense concludes that nobody has the right to control the life or death of another person regardless of their location, age or status (born or not).
- beachbrian July 24, 2008 4:10PM
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So Beachbrian, how many times have you been pregnant?
I can only assume by your moniker that you are a male and consequently will never experiance facing an unwanted pregnancy. Infants are not "being killed" because an embryo is not an infant. Until that "child" can function and breath on it's own it's still considered part of the woman's body. A woman does not give up her human o legal rights simply because she conceives. Like I've said, unless the woman involved is your girlfriend, wife, mother, sister, ect. you have no right to tell her what to do with her body. It's of no financial burden to you if she chooses abortion . It's of no concern to you if she chooses abortion. The woman is a stranger to you. You have no knowledge of her financial or emotional circumstances. It's none of your business unless you plan on supporting the child for the next 18 years of it's life.
- Thedes
November 29, 2008 12:31AM
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Does my vote count more?
I've been pregnant 5 times, if that means that I am uniquely more qualified than a man to make a decision about something that relates to women.
Abortion kills a human offspring at the stage of human development called either embryo or fetus. That doesn't make it non-human. Infant, child, adolescent, and adult are names for other stages of human development.
An embryo has, from the very moment of conception, it's own unique DNA. That is a scientific fact. It is not a part of a woman's body but a unique being that happens to be developing in the place where it was designed (by God or nature, your choice) to develop until the time it is ready for birth.
It absolutely does affect everyone if abortion is legal. There are many consequences to society, whether financial (when taxpayer funds are used to fund it, or in dealing with the medical consequences that often follow) or not (as in the higher rate of child abuse that we have in the time that abortion has been legal).
I support groups that help women when they are in crisis pregnancy situations. If a woman has a financial or emotional circumstance that may cause her to think that abortion is her only choice (or if she is pushed into an abortion by a boyfriend, husband, parent, or someone else), we as a society should stand up and let her know that there are ways that we can help her besides telling her that killing her child is the only option. The way to help a woman with a crisis pregnancy is to help her solve the crisis.
Abortion is a betrayal of women - even early feminists like Susan B. Anthony believed that. Those who didn't are women like Margaret Sanger, who was a proponent of eugenics and a racist who supported Hitler.
- jayzee2000
December 8, 2008 8:12AM
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Since you brought Hitler into the equation
You better study your history dear child. Hitler was all for eugenics and forcing abortions on those he didn't consider racially pure but if a German woman wanted an abortion whoa Nelly! It was illegal to have an abortion for them and anyone who performed an abortion on their racially pure German women were executed for their "crime".
Let's just agree to disagree. I believe that the woman is here and now. Her health, her body, her life is paramount. An embryo is an embryo. No one forced you to have an abortion against your will but yet you feel you are so morally superior that you have the right to make decisions regarding other women. 99.9% of them are total strangers to you. If you don't believe in abortion then don't have one. End of argument. I support your right to have as many pregnancies as your body can tolerate and if by chance it may kill you in the process, then I support your right to commit suicide in order to bring the fruit of your conception to delivery. It's your business and your life just stay the hell out of other women's privacy. We have thousands of children languishing in foster care, hundreds of thousands without homes living on the street or in homeless shelters because their parents don't have jobs (or don't make enough to pay rent), millions more without healthcare because their parents make too much money to qualify for state assistance but not enough to purchase health insurance. Millions of children in this country go to bed every night hungry. Why aren't you working your ass off to see that these problems are addressed FIRST before demanding that all women must be forced to live by YOUR moral code??? Many women wouldn't seek to have an abortion if they made a decent wage and had affordable health care so why don't you put your efforts into passing legislation to increase the minimum wage and make national healthcare a reality. I bet you'd be surprised at how much that would reduce the numbers of abortions. Oh, and since your side tends to be anti-birth control I'd suggest you also make sure that women of childbearing ability have all the access to that. We don't need more pharmacists telling women that they can't take birth control pills because it offends their moral standards.
- Thedes
January 3, 2009 9:38AM
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Depends when in course of preganancy it's done
If it's done early on in the pregnancy, then I think there is less cause for objection. At some point you're dealing with an intelligent being, capable of feeling pain. I do think partial birth abortion should be outlawed. Jamming scissors into the skull and sucking out the brain shouldn't be allowed in any case.
- phogan July 25, 2008 12:35AM
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its our right to choose
Bottom line....it is the womans choice. Who are WE to tell another woman what she can and cannot do with her own body??? you dont have to be for it...or against it....but if YOU were in predicament....where at a point in your life you were not prepared...wouldnt you want to be able to decide for yourself what to do??? granted....perhaps there should be a point in a pregnancy where if youre a certain amount of time along that abortion couldnt be preformed, but again....i wouldnt dare tell another woman what to do. i dont think pro choice is PROMTING abortion...but it IS promoting the right to choose. this is something i am greatful to have as a young woman.
- lanidee02 July 26, 2008 8:35AM
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Rights
I think it is important to point out that, in the United States, a human "fetus" only a few days from being born has less rights than a dog. Is that right?
And do people honestly think that a baby inside the womb is "part of the woman's body?"
- Benjamin Tuttle
July 28, 2008 7:06PM
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Equally non-person
A dog is not a person. Therefore, it does not have rights. Positive feelings about dogs should have no bearing on the discussion.
A fetus is not a person. Therefore, it does not have rights. Negative feelings about the metaphysically independent status of women should have no bearing on the discussion.
- Wendy
September 1, 2008 11:15AM
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Blanket Dismissal
I'm not sure how you got the idea that animals and fetuses don't have rights. They do. And whether you like it or not, animals in this country have MORE rights than do fetuses (or children as some like to call them).
So I ask: When does a fetus become a person? When it is 100% out of the womb? Can you kill it (as some do) 3/4 out or leave it to die in a utility closet by inducing early labor? Isn't this a moral question that should be taken with more gravity than dismissing it as a non-person to secure a woman's "right" to choose her convenience over responsibility for two peoples' actions in most cases?
- Benjamin Tuttle
September 2, 2008 5:37AM
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Rights belong to man
Properly, animals and fetuses do NOT possess individual rights. Rights belong only man. Only man possesses the rational faculty. Do you intend to reason with an animal? Do you intend to instruct neighborhood dogs not to defecate on your lawn or you will file a lawsuit? Do you intend to caution a wild bear that he will be arrested if he attacks you? Animals do not have rights because they cannot reason; they must be dealt with by force.
The fact that some yahoo somewhere decides to pass a law protecting dogs and fetuses does not suddenly mean that animals and fetuses are rationally entitled to rights; it simply means that irrationality has taken hold in that yahoo's district.
A fetus becomes a person at birth. That would be real birth, not what evangelicals arbitrarily redefine as birth. An abortion is not a birth.
No one is simply dismissing anything. Reason is clear on this: A fetus is not a person. And the moral position is that an actual individual should not be treated as a means to the ends of other persons or non-persons.
- Wendy
September 2, 2008 3:44PM
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Continuing to Dodge the Question
Animals, and fetuses, have a right to life at the very least. If they had no rights, then animal cruelty wouldn't be a problem, now would it?
Where exactly do you get the notion that animals and fetuses have rights? Where do you get the notion that humans have rights? If you are rationally making the statement that a fetus becomes a person at birth (wherever you derive that standard from), what about that baby that is 3/4 out? What about a baby that can survive on its own after 8 months in the womb? What makes that magical instant where every inch of that baby is outside of the mother the key to its humanity?
The coldness of the argument you present, along with the arbitrary nature of your declaration, is a little scary. Denying that abortion is a moral choice, and that the unborn and animals have any rights whatsoever is also scary.
- Benjamin Tuttle
September 2, 2008 6:10PM
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How can I make it any clearer
Animal cruelty is NOT a political problem, unless you are a collectivist. Although animal abuse should be condemned morally, it should not be illegal. Animals do not have rights and are the property of their owners. If you deny this, then you cannot claim a right to eat meat and wear leather. You have lost any principled argument you can make for these practices, and if you make pragmatic arguments, then you confess to being a murderer as well as a hypocrite. You also make a great leap down a very slippery slope.
Degrees of "out of the birth canal" is not fundamental here; what is fundamental is the nature of the entity. Again, a fetus becomes a person at birth. The laws of nature eventually result in a fetus becoming survivable, fully formed, its organs functioning autonomously, and the whole organism becoming metaphysically independent, and at that time, the law of cause-and-effect induces childbirth. Nature, or reality, is what sets the standard, not medical technology or the arbitrary say-so of people. We must deal with a thing as it is, now how we can imagine it or emote it to be.
Frankly, your question, "Where do you get the notion that humans have rights?" is scarier than any coldly rational argument I could ever make about anything. I also don't see you asking about the moral implications of the view that a pregnant woman should be forced into the metaphysical status of a plastic incubator.
- Wendy
September 3, 2008 4:22PM
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Rights
Just because a dog is not a 'person' it does not mean it does not, or should not have rights. It seems bizarre to me that people care more about the unborn foetus than they do about the millions of dogs and other non-human animals who are already alive and suffering at the hands of the human race.
- ladyred
September 10, 2008 7:03AM
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A child is not part of the woman?
Babies ARE part of the mother. They are part of "her" body. Saying otherwise is ridiculous. Where does the baby receive life? From the mother giving it life by letting it live off of her food, water, blood, etc. Does everyone make wrong decisions? Yes. But if a man decides to make a poor decision by having unprotected sex with a woman, he can leave. Now this woman has part of a man in her that she doesn't want as well as no father to bring it into this world. Why does she have to suffer due to someone else being a coward? The government is not going to pay her enough to properly feed herself and take care of the baby before she can birth it to give to adoption. Unless the government says "Here's maternity pay at the rate you were receiving prior to your pregnancy as well as free food for the baby," why should she pay for this? It should be up to her to decide.
- thinkforyourself July 30, 2008 1:46AM
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A child isn't part of the woman
I didn't realize that an adam's apple and male genetalia were a common part of a woman's anatomy. Tell me though, which part of the woman is this child? And why, unlike almost every other cell in her body, does this part not share the entirety of her DNA?
- JKM121
November 18, 2008 5:48PM
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its selfish
its just selfish. ok, i'll exclude cases where there is some sort of complication. if it's a choice between abortion, and both people dieing, i dont have a problem with that.
my main problem with it is that the man has absolutly no say in this. lets say a woman gets pregnant. the man wants the child, and the woman doesn't. the guy can kind of see it coming and may try to talk her out of it, but that's the best he can do. while the male half is already attached to the baby, the female half could be out there having his baby killed without him even knowing. a child that the man wants, and would take all responsability for. financial and otherwise. anything it takes to keep his child alive. it would be absolutely devastating when the guy finds that out.
a sad story, yes? now lest say that story is true. we'll say that because it is. my baby was killed years ago, and it still hurts. i tried everything i could to keep my baby alive, and i failed. it was an impossible battle.
- YellowKeyboard August 3, 2008 5:07PM
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its called prevention
Even rape victims can prevent their pregnancies. its called the morning after pill. since the egg hasn't implanted yet it can not be consitered an abortion since the woman isn't pregnant yet.
murder is not legal so i'm not sure why abortion is even a debate
Roe of roe vs. wade. is now pro life and fighting to over turn that death sentence
- superherom03
August 11, 2008 6:35AM
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Almost
This would almost be a decent compromise, except rape is a lot more complicated than that.
Many times violence is also involved in rape, and in a hospital emegency room your immediate health is what they are focused on, and you may not be able to get a pill within that 24 hour window. And there are many places that refuse to sell morning after pills. What happens then if you live in a small town and the only pharmacy around won't give it to you? What if they're raped by a family member, and can't get away within 24 hrs? What if you can't afford the pill? It can cost more than $300 to get one from a hospital ER, which is the only thing open during off-hours.
Say what you might against abortion, rape victims should always have that option. This includes statutory rape. No 15 year old should have their dreams shattered by being forced to have a baby, be it by violent rape, being coerced into sex by an older male, incest, or anything else that may have been out of their control.
- TwentySomethingAndSmiling
August 19, 2008 2:16PM
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yes rape is complicated
but i am responding as a rape victim. i am holding in my arms the results of that rape. my son is the world to me. an abortion would be just as tramatizing as a rape
- superherom03
August 30, 2008 11:53AM
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If abortion is murder ...
If abortion is murder in some cases, then it is murder in every case. If a fetus has rights, then there is no moral basis to make an exception for rape. That just takes the rape victims feelings into account, which can't be put above the rights of the fetus.
- Adam Hammond
September 3, 2008 6:27PM
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The right to life
is not the right to exist under any and all sets of circumstances. No human being has that right. And the development of the distinctive characteristic of human being's to reason and make judgments is the operative context in which the law defines the ages at which the full support of (recognition) and weight of (punishment)the law extends in any set of circumstances. Children, for example, do not, under normal circumstances, have the right to decide how they will be raised. By the same token, parents do not have the right to beat a child into submission, either. In both cases, it is the adults who are in judgment, not the children. Since it is the adults who are considered to be 'of the age of majority' it is they to who have the right to raise their child and they who are punished for the abuse.
- Atlas Fan
August 30, 2008 10:43AM
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Dangerous ground
You make a distinction between conception and implantation? How is the fetus less of a human before implantation. If you argue that there is something that has rights because of a unique combination of genetics, then IUDs and Morning After pills are murder and implantation has no relevance.
If, instead, you argue that implantation is the important event, then I would wonder, why not some other event in development? Gastrulation is a miracle, so is the rearrangement of the MHC complex (where the fetus defines what is self and what is other). How about a heart beat or a first breath. They all seem like equally momentous events in the creation of a new human being.
- Adam Hammond
September 3, 2008 6:21PM
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Was Pro-Choice Until I Saw The Results
I was pro-choice for many years, ever since I knew what abortion was. As much as I hate to admit to being wrong, I was definitely wrong on my stance on abortion. The horrors of the procedure are real, and the results are absolutely devastating. Just look at pictures of aborted fetuses with their arms and heads chopped off. It's truly a disgusting thing. We also now know that these fetuses can indeed feel pain, therefore it is a very abrupt, painful death to an unborn child.
Most women who have them regret their decision. For all you know you might have just aborted the person who found the cure for cancer or diabetes. However, we'll never know as they didn't get a chance.
Abortion is unethical and those who perform them are murderers.
- bagpiper2005
August 15, 2008 12:10PM
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Could it be ...
That those who regret their decision do so because they don't understand the fundamental moral right they have to make it? The issue has not been well-defended. See the comment from the Ayn Rand Center.
- Atlas Fan
August 30, 2008 10:14AM
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no
those who regret it do so because they know the have killed their baby. my mother says this after her abortion 27 years ago
- superherom03
August 30, 2008 11:55AM
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IF...
your mother feels that she killed her baby, of course she regrets that -- particularly if she felt that having a baby would have been a good thing. And she must have. She had at least one other child -- you.
But bagpiper2005 said 'most' and I wanted to issue a ittle challenge to get some more thinking along with the obvious emotion that, for some understaable reeasons, goes with this issue.
If we have had children and wanted them and loved them we can, mistakenly I believe, see our own child being killed. What a devistating thing that would be!
As ARC has commennted on this thread, it is the first trimester that is the basic issue. Though I am not associated with ARC, I agree. Rights are recognized in context. And in the context of a woman's adult life, it is her right to decide, within the first trimester, that must be recognized.
If, after she decides on an abortion, she is remorseful, that is certainly sad. But her remorse is not grounds for denying the righ to an abortion to those who regret having a child and kill them -- either physically or emotionally -- after they are born.
AF
- Atlas Fan
September 1, 2008 3:51AM
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A fetus is not a person
"Just look at pictures of aborted fetuses with their arms and heads chopped off." Okay, look at pictures of fetuses. Do they look like actual people? No, of course not. They look like fetuses. That is because they are fetuses, not human beings.
"...unborn child." Contradiction in terms. Children have been born. A fetus is not a child.
"For all you know you might have just aborted the person who foudn teh cure for cancer or diabetes." People are not aborted. Fetuses get aborted. Fetuses are not people.
"...those who perform them are murderers." Murder means to deliberately kill another human being justifiably. Fetuses are not human beings. Therefore, those who perform abortions are not murderers.
- Wendy
September 1, 2008 12:01PM
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Typo
I meant "unjustifiably" in that last paragraph. Apologies.
- Wendy
September 2, 2008 3:45PM
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Take a closer look
- A fetus at 39 weeks: looks just like my son 5 minutes after birth ( http://www.birth.com.au/InfoBits/Pics/5-37.gif )
A fetus at 15 weeks: head, body, arms, legs, fingers, toes, eyes... that's not a cat ( http://www.birth.com.au/InfoBits/Pics/67-10.jpg )
An embryo at 9 weeks: i not know exactly what it was, but it is definitely an animal (not a plant) and it has a head, arms, legs, fingers. ( http://www.birth.com.au/InfoBits/Pics/66-30.gif )
An embryo at 6 week: just by looking I would have not idea what this was ( http://www.birth.com.au/InfoBits/Pics/66-28.gif )
Conclusion: a fetus looks remarkably like a newborn human person; there must be a connection.
(I couldn't find actual pictures, so the medical style depictions will have to do for now. Can someone find actual pictures?)
- ces September 6, 2008 12:40AM
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A picture is not an argument
But even if it were, you would have a very poor one. A fetus simply looks like a fetus. It can clearly be identified as such. Imagining it as a person doesn't make it so.
- Wendy
September 8, 2008 2:15PM
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A picture is a pretty good argument
I guess you did not look at the pictures. Even a 3 year old will identify a fetus as a human baby... mine did, and she is not unique in that respect.
I'll expound on this tomorrow.
- ces September 9, 2008 9:49PM
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Fetuses are not people?
Ok, this is actually kinda funny..Technically fetuses are not people, but come on Wendy.. Fetuses eventually WILL BE people and children, without question if they weren't KILLED. So, how is any of this relevant? And also, a murderer is someone who takes another's life.. and that is exactly what they are doing when KILLING A CHILD or fetus or whatever you would like to justify it as to make yourself feel better. I do not understand how people would want to kill their own child when they knew all along that pregnancy could happen. I do not see why the child should have to suffer for their parents horrible decisions..a baby is so innocent..they have done nothing wrong to the world...so have the child and bless someone else with the privilege that one is taking for granted.
- ijordan
October 2, 2008 11:23AM
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Prove it
Wendy, or anyone for that matter, prove that a human embryo, or a human fetus, is NOT a human being; note that being is definded as something having the quality of existence, something that actually exists, or a life - Webster's.
So to rephrase, you must now validate your claim by proving that a living human embryo/fetus is not an actually existing human life.
- JKM121
November 18, 2008 6:02PM
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Mission accomplished
See all my other posts on this forum, but particularly my recent one in which I show that you are definition dodging in your use of the word "human" and also explain that "alive" is not the essence of "person," and show how there is no basis for claiming that the two concepts together have significance synergistically.
- Wendy
November 19, 2008 8:20PM
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It's so tempting ...
But seriously, I've seen your posts, nowhere do you refute the HUMANITY of a HUMAN embryo/fetus. Can I be any more blunt? You cannot prove the absence of the subject, nor can you deny the race (the human race) to which he/she belongs. Therefore, and since I have here proven that an unborn human is still a human being; and since it is also true that said humans are alive, they are therefore, by definition, persons. End of case.
- JKM121
November 21, 2008 4:57PM
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Oh, the humanity!
I believe I refuted the "humanity" of fetuses when I pointed out on multiple occasions that they do not possess consciousness or metaphysical independence. I could be mistaken, but there are no known fetuses who give to their favorite non-profit, write great works, or express admiration for sublime music and poetry. Let me know when that happens, and I will be glad to revise my concept of fetuses. Heck, I would even give way if they merely showed their humanity by considerately offering their unwilling, burdened hosts a break by taking up residence in an incubator somewhere instead.
But since you like dictionaries, dodge this: "1. The quality of being human; the peculiar nature of man, by which he is distinguished from other beings."--Webster's Revised Unabridged 1996.
Hmmm...What is peculiar to man? By what is he distinguished from other beings? The rational faculty. Aristotle already proved this.
- Wendy
November 22, 2008 2:17PM
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What you saw was more the exception...
Those gruesome pictures the pro-pregnancy crowd likes to display are not the usual aborion procedure. Late term abortion are usually rare and only to save the life of the mother. Besides, these pictures have been around for decades so they were probably done ages ago. The majority of abortions happen in the first trimester and you'd be hard pressed to find anything that looks human. In fact, it would require a microscope to find the embryo. You have every right to consider abortion an act of "murder" even though there isn't a fully formed human involved. Just remember, it's the woman is the fully formed human with feelings, a life, and a future. Your God aborts almost half of all conceptions in the first 8 weeks so I guess God isn't so anti-abortion as you are.
- Thedes
November 29, 2008 12:39AM
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Nonsense
Late term abortions are the exception not the norm. The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester and you'd need a microscope to see the results of that. Those pictures that you speak of are over 40 years old. Many of these were performed in places outside of the US where they didn't have more sophisticated medical means of termination. Late term abortions are only done if the mother's health is at stake. In other words, she's at risk of imminent death or in some cases if the fetus won't survive birth and it puts the woman at risk.
Again, you don't believe in abortion don't have one. What other women do in their decision making is none of your business and you have no right to make those decisions for them. To you it's unethical and you consider it murder. To the majority of us, we consider it a health issue and a privacy issue. I wouldn't support a country that forces a woman to have an abortion against her will anymore than I would support a nation that forces a woman to give birth against her will. It's a privacy issue. Unless you are willing to pony up more tax dollars to help support these 1.2 million more births I'd suggest you should stop passing judgment on the decisions of those 1.2 million women who have to make difficult choices regarding their lives. Until the fetus is able to breath on it's own, it's still considered part of the woman's body. It's stupid and selfish to force a million more children to be born into poverty and suffering when you continue to ignore the one's here who need help. You'll never find enough people to adopt a million children per year every year. Besides, not every woman would want to put them up for adoption. If women were making a living wage, had affordable health insurance, housing, affordable childcare, you'd be surprised at how many fewer abortions were done every year. Why not but more of your time and energy into those problems and help get those put into place instead of browbeating women over their private decisions?
- Thedes
January 3, 2009 9:51AM
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