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It’s not like adoption exists or anything.
THANK YOU.
It’s not like we have the right to force a women to go through the risks of carrying a baby and/or the potential for her to loose educational or career opportunities due to the stigma surrounding unplanned pregnancies and being forced to take unpaid time off because the U.S. doesn’t have paid maternity leave…. or anything >__<
THANK YOU.
Yet you suddenly want to force women to go through the risks of caring for an infant and potentially losing her career due to the stigma of being an unwed mother….just as soon as her child starts breathing. Double standard much?
Maybe she shouldn’t be having sex? No sex, no baby, it’s not a hard thing to figure out. Anyone that truly cares about their career and future should be able to do a simple cost benefit analysis (I know this seems hard, but it isn’t) of the situation. One night of pleasure (assuming your partner is actually good) vs. a chance to get pregnant or get an STD. HMMM.
Yea, sure….how’d that work for you?
… That’s why people use these magical things called ‘contraceptives’.
Also, it’s human nature to want to have sex. Also, it’s not always just plain ‘sex’. It’s an intimate act that you can share with just you and your partner. People with hopes for the future and careers have needs too and maybe they’re just not ready for a baby yet.
Yes, and contraceptives are a implicit affirmation of the risks of having sex. If you think contraceptives are okay to use, then when someone get’s pregnant you should accept the responsibilty of those actions. You knew sex could cause pregnancy (otherwise you wouldn’t have used the contraceptives), so there’s not unplanned event or accident.
Also, human nature says that we go to war and kill other members of our species and that overusing our environment is okay. By your logic I guess we shouldn’t try to preserve any wilderness or stop warring with each other for resources and territory.
Lastly, again with the “me me me” argument. I’m sorry, you have no rights when your actions condemn another person. The child is alive and they have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Actually one person’s right to bodily domain overrides another person’s right to live, even a born person with family and friends and goals. That’s why someone can’t force you to donate one of your organs to save their life. Bodily domain > right to live.
You seem to have failed to realize that it is not always the woman’s choice. If the pregnancy was the result of force then having that child just adds more trauma to an already horrifying experience. You should not have the right to force a woman to relive that everyday she looks at that child.
If I was robbed at gunpoint while with my wife, then (by your logic), I’ll be reminded of that horrible experience whenever I look at her. Guess I should get rid of her, huh?
So for you having been assaulted is equally traumatic as being mugged? Think about things before you post them.
Or….you can give it to Jesus faster…
Just Sayin
Ouch.
Adoption is not some miracle cure for unplanned pregnancy. It’s not like every kid who gets put up for adoption is living with a loving family within a few weeks. The odds of actually being adopted are very low, and for a kid that has to be incredibly bleak.
Baby doesn’t get a life vs. baby get’s a chance at a life. Hmm such a hard choice.
was that supposed to be a sentence?
Two, I think.
So neoritter, how’s the view on top of your high horse?
It’s very simple: You live YOUR life and not interfere with the lives of another. No one is forcing you to have an abortion. Mind your own damn business.
You seem quite confident telling neoritter not to interfere with the lives of pregnant women, but you don’t seem to want to tell abortionists not to interfere in the lives of unborn children. Double standard much?
The hypocrisy is hilarious yet disturbing and depressing at the same time.
I feel bad making fun of this because right now there’s a doctor seeing this comment and thinking, “Ha ha, I really screwed that abortion up.”
I feel bad making fun of this because right now there’s a doctor seeing this comment and thinking, “Ha ha, I really screwed that abortion up.”
besides… mostly of the ones we are actually adopted goes to really bad homes, were they will be tortured and abused everyday.
…I know it for a fact.
So we should kill them now, because there’s a chance their home lives might be difficult later on? There are millions of adoptions every year by loving parents.
I’m sorry, but this isn’t Juno and there isn’t going to be a Jennifer Garner mother across the street all the time. Adopting a child is a long, pricey process. You mentioned your 8 siblings had a tough life before being adopted, now imagine they never got adopted and on their 18th birthday they were given just enough money for a bus fair out of the home they were in and kicked out? I wouldn’t say “Oh, your life sucks, too bad you didn’t get aborted!” But really, what do you think is more important? The longer you live or the quality of your life? Imagine if you were one of the kids that never got a family, or if you did you got one that wouldn’t even look at you because they never even wanted you in the first place.
All the choices a woman can do with her pregnancy has consequences, and some worse than others. None are miracles and none will solve all their problems. Some women regret their abortions, adoptions, or even keeping their children. I help out kids who are in the system, I do counseling and mentoring. It’s a shame to see what most have to go through on a day to day basis.
I doubt they would have gotten bus fare. Even so, I somehow think that you wouldn’t fare very well if you volunteered to stand outside the orphanage and shoot every 18 year old as they left.
In my immediate family, I’ve seen the effects of abortion and adoption (going both ways). I’m not so naive as to think that any of this is simple or easy. But as complicated as it is, abortion is always the worst choice.
It’s easy to say. Good thing you’ve carried a child and know.
That’s pretty much how people work. It’s always different when it’s someone else’s 9 months of gestation, hormonal upheaval, and being physically changed for life.
Okay then…I bet you won’t like such high taxes when you actually have to start paying them.
Anyone else bothered by how unrelated these two things are, any yet we can’t really vote for one without the other?
Ron Paul.
As much as I respect Ron Paul he’s a hypocrite on this.
He doesn’t want the government to be able to tell us to do anything but he’s happy to let the government tell women what they can and can’t do in their OB/GYN offices.
I daresay that working as an obstetrician for several decades, like Paul did, would give you an appreciation for the value of human life.
It’s not about telling people what they can and can’t do; it’s about affording prenatal children equal protection under the law.
Prenatal children are not people.
Uh, citation needed?
I’m sorry, but you are telling people what they can and can’t do. There’s no other way around it.
Rephrased for explicit clarity: “The purpose of the prolife movement is not to arbitrarily dictate personal choices but to protect children.”
Protecting children requires telling people not to hurt children. I think that’s pretty obvious.
By “protecting children” you mean making abortion not an option, right? By that stance you are telling people what they can and can’t do.
you’re saying “Sure there should be a choice, but not if it’s abortion” That doesn’t make sense now, doesn’t it?
And if pro-lifers care about children that much, why are they focusing all their attention on the unborn? There’s plenty of children out there that need the help and are not in some woman’s uterus. You seem like a passionate person, take all of this passion and use it to foster or adopt some kids when you can, or help out in any way possible. It seems that most pro-lifers care about the fetus and then once it’s born are all “Well, it’s born so my work here is done.”
With all due respect, I fear that your perception is more motivated in prejudice than in reality.
Some choices are wrong. Speed limit signs restrict my choice to drive at 80 mph in residential neighborhoods, because such a choice would endanger other individuals, and that would be wrong. Identifying and discouraging dangerous or harmful choices is the basis of all ethics and morality.
Prejudice against what? Do you think I have some sort of agenda against fetuses or pro-lifers? I can assure you I don’t, and if debating is making you feel attacked personally then well, I’m sorry. The internet makes feelings hard to understand with no voice inflection so I am saying that I actually mean that, in case it comes off sarcastic.
Who decides what choices are dangerous and how far do we go? Do you seriously want there to be laws strictly dictating your day to day life on how dangerous your choices are? Smoking kills, let’s outlaw cigarettes? Abortion, adoption, and keeping the child can be dangerous, should we investigate and keep tabs on every pregnant or fertile woman in the country? There’s a point where you’re “protecting” people and restricting people from doing what they wish with their lives. Speed limits are in place to reduce chances of collisions. Why is that important? It protects a wider scale of people and doesn’t inconvenience anyone else. Dangerous choices are made every single day, but you can’t make my choice for me. If someone speeds, there is consequence. Abortion, adoption, and keeping a pregnancy isn’t without consequence. I’m not stupid, I don’t think there’s a miracle choice. What I’m saying is all can be equally dangerous, why do you get to make that choice for me?
Just to add, before you bring up assaulters and child abusers again I’ll say that assault victims and abuse victims have choices legally too and their choice to not be assaulted or abused is violated when the assaulter or abuser takes it away. A fetus on the other hand is not only taking away the woman’s choice to not be pregnant, but it is also not a *person by law to have said choice.
*Defined previously for you.
No, I don’t feel like you are attacking me. You’ve been very civil — thank you. I think, however, that’s very easy for people on opposite sides of the abortion issue to think that the other side is obsessed with some irrelevant point. Your comment that pro-lifers only care about fetuses and not children when they are born is baselessly inaccurate, but it evidences the sort of misunderstanding between sides that is so common in this debate.
I’m really quite libertarian when it comes to personal choices. I think the war on drugs is pointless and the government should generally keep its nose out of how and where we spend our money. We have the right to do whatever we want with our lives as long as we do not endanger other people.
All I’m saying is that no choice is as dangerous for the child as abortion.
Here’s what it comes down to. I will agree that *IF* a fetus is not a human being and does not deserve human rights, then abortion is entirely the woman’s choice and is no more the purvey of the government (or anyone else) than her haircut. Will you agree that *IF* a fetus is a human being and does deserve human rights, then abortion is an act of aggression that violates the rights of another human being?
Ummm Nope! Still Pro-Life
You be Pro-Choice and we’re all evan 
*anti- choice
*anti- life
Not a legitimate comparison. Many so-called “pro-life” people are also pro-war (that is, pro-killing-of-foreign-civilians), pro-death penalty (that is, pro-killing-of-criminals), pro-medical restrictions (that is, pro-letting-people-die-if-their-treatment-conflicts-with-your-beliefs), and so on. You cannot be called “pro-life” if the only “life” you are supporting is in the womb. Further, many pro-lifers don’t really care about the child after it is born and despise the idea of having to pay taxes to educate and support that child once it becomes a, you know, actual child – which is unfortunate, because many of the women who choose abortion do so because they cannot financially support a child. You are pro-gestation, not pro-life. Pro-choice people, however, are simply advocating for the right of a woman to choose what happens to her own body. So…yeah, nice try, but if you’re going to call pro-choice folks “anti-life” then you might want to take a good long look at the anti-choice’s movements remarkably hypocritical philosophies.
“I’m pro-life.”
“All the evidence I’ve seen indicates that a fetus has all the characteristics that make us individual human beings. If this is the case, unborn children deserve equal protection under the law.”
Politicize that.
you are in a burning hospital and you can save only one: a newborn baby or 100 frozen fetuses. choose!
You probably mean frozen embryos, not frozen fetuses. Frozen fetuses would be dead.
Not only would a newborn suffer more, but the chances of embryos surviving outside of refrigeration is nil. Doesn’t make them any less human. If you were in a burning hospital and had to save either a five-year-old in a cast or a comatose 2-week-old on life support, which would you choose?
Do you know better than Jesus? Jewish tradition holds that a baby isn’t ensouled in the womb until quickening (when the mother can feel it move or kick). Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi and held to Jewish traditions.
So apparently you think you better than Jesus.
Please tell me this is a troll
Because most *cough all* ‘pro-lifers’ are christian? At least, they have a tendency to use their religion to justify forcing women to go through something they don’t want and can be dangerous for them.
Also, just because Jesus opposed of the priests doesn’t make him anti-jewish. He never intended to start a new religion, just a more liberal way of Judaism without corrupt, greedy priests.
Oh snap!
You should get that cough checked. I recommend that anyone actually interested in learning about the abortion debate visit a site like godlessprolifers [dot] org. There are many, many people of many, many faiths (or lack thereof) who oppose abortion. Nor have I advanced a single religious argument here, thus showing your assertion to be nothing but an ad hominem slur.
Exactly what the historical Jesus came to do (and whether he accomplished that) is beyond the scope of this discussion. Regardless, appealing to Jewish tradition as “proof” of what Jesus thought is humorous, especially when we are already provided with so much of what Jesus actually taught.
Holy craptastic, STFU. They don’t even develop the ability to have sensory input until 31 weeks. They don’t feel, they don’t think, they just grow. Women deserve the choice of whether or not they want to keep their fetus. Newsflash, every single stem cell can also be developed into a fetus. So maybe we should saddle you with an unwanted, unloved child and force you to take care of it even if you don’t have the means to. Oh and maybe we should develop a form of intense pain to put you through for a couple hours too. Seeing as how you don’t have any clue whatsoever what it’s like to carry a child, maybe you should take your misogynism somewhere else. If you really don’t think women should have choices, go live in a country where they don’t have choices. I’m sure you’ll fit right in with everyone else who sees women as nothing but an incubator for the next generation of men.
Temporary inability to receive sensory perception doesn’t invalidate a person’s human rights. A doctor can’t murder someone during surgery and then say, “It wasn’t really a person; it couldn’t feel or think.”
Are you really so blind as to think that the pro-life movement is motivated by a desire to prevent women from making choices?
You’re comparing apples and oranges. And what exactly do you think?? The entire movement suggests that women are officially nothing but an means for incubation once implantation has occurred, and as such, have no choice on what they wish to do with their fetus. There’s still a 25% chance that it will spontaneously abort anyhow, or alternatively it could be still-born. It is not capable of thinking, feeling physical sensation or emotion, and making its own choices until its brain is finished developing. Up to that point in time, what happens to should be up to the mother. Until it is actually viable and has come to term, I would put the rights of the mother first. But yeah, if you say that she has no choice but to carry the child, that is taking away her choices. Is that even a question?
Also, maybe stop spamming the thread your views, you’ve posted MORE than enough times to make yourself abundantly clear that you don’t believe women have rights if they have a fetus in them. It gets annoying after 30-some posts.
Not saying I agree or disagree with you, but a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are about twenty three.
I realize the world develop was on the ambiguous side. I meant finish turning into a fully functioning brain with all the necessary components, instead of finished growing completely, obviously.
what exactly do you mean when you say characteristics? what makes us individual human beings, what indicates are there that the fetus already has these characteristics?
because in the early states of a pregnancy, the human embryo has less sense and mind than the embryo of an elephant or reptile in the same state of pregnancy and that could lead one to the conclusion that those show more of the characteristics that are generally considered as the ones that make us human…
A two month old infant has less sense and mind than a bonobo, but we don’t consider her to be any less human because of it.
An embryo has a complete, unique human genome. It has its own skin color, hair color, fingerprint, and genetic markers. The fact that it is temporarily disabled by gestation does not make it any less human.
Well of course it’s human! You can’t expect something conceived by two humans to be any less than that. However, fetuses can also be classified as parasitic considering how they develop; their presence is technically harmful to the mother, seeing as they are made the body’s priority. They get the most beneficial nutrients first, leaving the leftovers to the mother. The only reason someone should have a child is if they want it. Society’s opinion should never be law when a fully grown person’s well-being and productivity is at stake, regardless of how others feel about the matter.
Can you provide one solitary example of a “parasite” that infests its own species?
Making up a random definition of “parasite” doesn’t dehumanize an entire class of persons. Try again.
You seem to be incapable of understanding the concept of metaphors. He is likening it to a parasite, not actually calling it a literal parasite. I don’t really find his argument convincing even though we’re kind of on the same side…
Also, since I’m an animal geek of somesorts I DO know of a parasite that infests it’s own species. In many species of ducks females will lay eggs in several other females’ nests to increase the chance of their offspring surviving. It’s called a ‘brood parasite’.
What do you mean by a ‘class of persons’?
Oh! One more thing. You could classify all human beings as parasites. We take and take and take all that we can from the Earth. We eat all of the animals, tear down all the trees, and poison the water that we drink. As you know, there are 7 billion people on this plant. We are pushing the world to the edge of it’s limit and everyone knows that soon it’s going to crash. Us humans like to think that we’re the top of the food chain but the reality is that we’re just lowly parasites… We take it all and give nothing back. It’s quite depressing, really… We’re all capable of such wonderful fantastic things but our human nature (ie. Having as many children as possible.) is what’s killing us. I love children a lot but I would rather have less babies than starving babies.
Oh, it just didn’t seem like he was analogizing; he seemed to be literally classifying it as a parasite. I agree, the argument doesn’t have much validity. As a metaphor, it could explain why someone might be more comfortable with abortion, but it would take more than a metaphor to actually provide a justification.
Interesting example; I hadn’t thought of that. Definitely still in the metaphorical category, though.
As far as human beings in general are concerned….I daresay we overestimate our impact on the earth as a whole. Even if that metaphor was accurate, though, it wouldn’t justify shooting random people to “save the planet’s rights”, and so Herp’s metaphor (if it was a metaphor) fails again.
Class of persons = prenatal humans.
Definition of parasite: “a creature who receives support, advantage, or the like, from another or others without giving any useful or proper return, as one who lives on the hospitality of others. ”
This definition is applicable to any fetus of any species (unless there is an example of a fetus which gives back to the parent). I don’t see why this is so hard to comprehend; the relationship between an unborn child and its mother harms the mother. It isn’t a dehumanization of fetuses, merely part of a definition. I agreed with you before on how they are human, because saying they aren’t is false. Just because something is human, though, does not mean it is helpful or able to contribute positively to anyone or anything.
“support, advantage, or the like”
So a 2-week-old infant is a parasite too? Guess we can kill babies with just as much impunity after they are born.
I have yet to find any justification for abortion that does not apply equally well to postnatal infanticide.
^This.
We could have sustainable population growth, but we don’t, because “contraception is a sin” and “abortion is murder.”
We’re topping 7 billion in world population now, 1 billion of which are living right at the starvation level. Each year approximately 11 million people die of hunger. About the same number of people who died in concentration camps in Europe in WWII.
But nobody cares because they’re too worried about “saving” an egg that happened to have some DNA accidently splashed into it, instead of focusing on living, breathing humans who are suffering and dying every second.
All the evidence? What evidence?!
A fetus has exactly nothing valuable at all…
Self-recognition? No.
Apperception? No.
Rationality? No.
Emotionality? No.
Experience? o/c, no.
No, actually nothing that would, in any way, point to anything close to individuality. Not even face-features!
Btw. even if, you would still need to show why individuality should matter for the value of life (how about twins?).
I side with Singer and Hoerster. Pro-Choice. Anyway, i’m not american, so idmtm.
A 2-week-old infant has exactly nothing valuable at all….
Self-recognition? No.
Apperception? Nope.
Rationality? Certainly not.
Emotionality? As uncontrollable as a fetus.
Experience? If it’s not stored in memory, it’s not experience.
See, a baby really has no value until it’s at least a year or two old, right?
I’d like you to look up a picture of a human fetus at 6 weeks. Then look up pictures of cat fetuses, dolphin fetuses, fish fetuses, bird fetuses and reptile fetuses. See anything familiar? At the early stages of development, we look more like fish than people. We have tails and gills. Our human genes have not kicked in yet, and we are developing the same way all vertebrates develop. We are not definitively human yet.
Although a human fetus has the potential to develop into a human being, at this point in time, we are no different from any other vertebrate on the planet.
Hm… seem to have made a typo. That should read 4 weeks. One month into pregnancy.
Embryonic recapitulation is a discredited 19th-century fantasy on a level with phrenology. You would do well to avoid it. Human embryos NEVER have gills. Nor do we have tails; our spine forms first to give our limbs something to attach to, but that doesn’t make a spine any more of a tail than it is in a fully-grown adult.
Besides, your argument essentially boils down to “If people look a certain way, it’s okay to discriminate against them.” In that regard, abortion is eerily similar to slavery.
Nuter acctually you are in correct. i’m against war although i realise it exists and is very hard to get ride of unfortunatlly. Death penalty has never been somehting i have been for that’s just sick. and Medical restrictions is bull shit. if someone is sick and you can help, then help them. there should be no restrictions to helping them. i already pay taxes so all i care about is that they go somewhere/. in fact if i had to pay 2-3% more for the kid to go to a good public school, i would (although i live in alberta where all our taxes are really gst…and whatever federal and provinciale we have) taxes tend to be nessicary so i accept them. although reading the last bite i feel like that was towards mike, so i’ll shut up *goes and hides in corner with her cookie)
You took the words right out of my mouth
Thank you for much of what you wrote.
You had me until the very end.
I *am* pro-choice. However, when people argue the last sentence that you put in you do a disservice to the rest of your well articulated arguments.
“simply advocating for the right of a woman to choose what happens to her own body”
Is *in my opinion* a terrible argument and statement, because:
1: At the point in time that a woman terminates a pregnancy, you have to be honest and state that at that point, she WAS gestating what was in most probability going to become another human.
It simply false to say that the decision she is making is “simply about her own body”. There is NOTHING simple about the very difficult choice she has to make nor the reasons this is such a hotly deeply contentious issue.
The expression “eating for two” is there for a reason.
As well, no pro-choice person would seriously tell you it’s ok to drink in the first tri-mester because it’s her body and that she wasn’t sharing it with her future child.
2: It is incredibly selfish.
We as people DO have to make sacrifices for others, and, sometimes those sacrifices are unpleasant.
Phrasing killing the (statistically likely) child inside her as an act all about herself does NOT make your arguments work well with others.
If you make an argument to others that makes you sound like an incredibly self-centered person it is not going to help bring you to their side.
So, I loved the first half of what you said, it has always bothered me, I’ve never heard the term ‘Pro-Gestation’ before and I think that’s brilliant.
You need to work on the second half though.
because all pro-lifers are exactly the same, amirite?
You forgot to mention those pro-life Americans who bombed abortion clinics and shot doctors.
Anyway, this reminds me of that George Carlin talking about pro-life. “Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life, these people aren’t pro-life, they’re killing doctors, what kind of pro-life is that? What, they’ll do everything they can do save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?”
Someone who shoots people isn’t pro-life. That’s kind of the definition of pro-life.
Gather around, folks. This young specimen is a prime example of the Fallacy of Equivocation. Now, who can tell us why?
OO OO OO, is it because they’re using a different definition of “life”? Specifically, “the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual.” Whereas the correct definition is, “the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment.”
Very close, Johnny.
This specimen is a Fallacy of Equivocation because the user is equivocating the right to life with the right to liberty (both, of course, enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution). We are guaranteed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….in that order. A woman’s right to liberty cannot trump her child’s right to life, no matter how much Iola equivocates the two rights.
Citations please.
It’s this thing called a dictionary.
Oh she has to stop drinking alkohol, quit smoking and eat sort of healthy for 9 months! She also has to do a check up every two months which probably costs her a total of 12 hours including driving, what a horrible fate!
Of course you would rather have your own child killed than going through all of that trouble! Also you would make another couple extremely happy by giving them the change to become parents (western civilisation babies will have no trouble finding 10 possible parents), who would want to do that? Like seriously they would be all thankfull and stuff and if you do an open adoption they would even get to thank you personally and drown you in all their happiness they might even bake you a cake and you would become fat!
I can totally see how not having to go through this is worth so much more than anyones whole life!
you have obviously never experienced pregnancy or read any information on the topic. pregnancy can kill you. so many things can and DO go wrong in even an otherwise “healthy” pregnancy. you are never the same after growing another person inside your body.
I’ve done it 3 times with 3 healthy children as a result. Pregnancy and giving birth are the most natural things for a woman to do, that’s why we’re women. The whole thing about your body never being the same, I call bull on that one, you probably just need to work at it a bit harder, same goes for me. I know the moment my children were born everything I had gone through was more than worth it, and I had back labor with all 3.
I have a cousin with 2 daughters, her body didn’t handle pregnancy well. Turned out she was allergic to hormones her body was producing during pregnancy. She would have had another baby had her doctor not told her no. It’s so sad to hear some of you on here talking about unborn children the way you do when all the mothers I know would say it’s worth everything you have to go through to bring a new life in to this world.
Why waste nine months of your life for something you don’t care about? There are thousands of children to adopt, why add one more to that list? Why go through the pains of pregnancy, including, but not limited to, nausea, back pain, increased bladder pressure, hemorrhoids, possible gestational diabetes, depression, self-esteem issues (usually concerning how one’s body is changing), discrimination and prejudice (especially noticeable with underage pregnancies), if you do not have a good reason to balance out these problems? What about your job, school, and personal life? And if you don’t have the money to afford check-ups, examinations, new clothes and everything else? What then?
If you get pregnant and decide to keep the fetus, go ahead, it’s your call. Just because it would be an easy decision for you does not mean other people would want to do the same.
Minority babies have a MUCH harder time getting adopted. S’all I’m saying.
What you mean to say is that fewer minority babies are adopted. That’s because fewer minority babies are offered up for adoption.
I’m pretty sure that’s not what she said.
Minority babies do have a harder time being adopted because people tend to adopt children that look like them. Caucasian people are more likely to adopt children because they are more likely to have the means. Furthermore, adopting children into another culture is still a rocky issue.
How do you have all this time to keep coming back to this forum?
Subscribed via email, post via iPhone. It’s very interesting to see all the different ways people approach this issue.
Oh? Please cite your source.
Talk about confirmation bias, you’re not going to ask Gwen to cite her source?
Pretty much everybody is pro-choice.
Very few people advocate legalizing assault.
The only real choice occurs when you choose to risk getting pregnant through both action and inaction. (having sex w/o proper birth control)
After that the only “choice” is pro-life or pro-murder.
And when the “choice” is taken away by an assaulter?
Assault is preventable.
In most cases it’s just a case of common sense. It’s also why law abiding citizens should own firearms to defend themselves in case of such assaults.
can’t tell if trolling or just stupid
def stoopid
Truthfull that argument has gotten old. a good assaulter would wear protection to keep some DNA that could get him arrested OUT of the women
Gosh Taryn, condoms never fail! Date r-pe never happens either right? Or the r-pe of a wife by the husband? Or when a womans birth control is tampered with by her boyfriend and/or husband – what then?
Just out of curiosity: do you actually have any examples of a boyfriend or husband tampering with birth control to force an unexpected pregnancy, or are you just making crap up?
I do. July 1989, my boyfriend poked holes in all of our condoms. When I went to open the package, back lit by the hall light, I saw the hole, thank goodness. But if I hadn’t, who knows what would have happened.
Also, I personally know a very staunch conservative woman who identifies herself as devout christian. She’s in her 40′s, has 3 teenaged kids and a husband of 20 years. Together they make in the $90,000.00 per year range, even in this economy. A month or so ago she called me to say she was afraid she might be pregnant. (This is doubly difficult because her husband has been fixed). When I asked her what she was going to do, her response was, “I cannot have anther kid. No way.” I pressed her and found that the above statement is apparently true; one unplanned pregnancy will turn even a rabid, held a sign and marched at a clinic, thought shooting abortion doctors was perfectly fine, pro-lifer into a very reasonable pro-choicer.
Thanks for providing the example.
because if you’ve never heard of it, it has never happened, right?
I’ve heard of it.
Non sequitur. I was merely asking for a solitary example.
Regardless, it doesn’t change the situation. If some sadistic individual decides to trap me with another person in a locked room and offers to let me leave if I kill the other person, that doesn’t justify me killing them.
You do not really want to consider a bunch of cells that is incapable of doing anything at all – especially not existing outside – as life?
you’re just a bunch of cells
Do you judge all people on the basis of their ability to be self-supporting or have certain functions? Or do you just discriminate against the vulnerable and voiceless because you have no sentimental feelings toward the hidden human beings in the womb?
On what basis do you justify your own continued existence?
fact: a fetus in the early state of pregnancy is nothing more than a parasite.
Not fact.
It’s a symbiotic relationship. By the mother supporting the life of the child in it’s early stages, the mother has achieved the goal of passing on their genetic material to a new generation. Eventually too in early and even modern society that child becomes a functioning member of a unit and would theoretically be a benefit to the mother in later life as by your logic an elderly individual is just a parasite to their children.
I don’t think you understand what a symbiotic relationship is.
And besides, isn’t this website meant for “grown-ups”? Or you know, people who have at least passed 7th grade? Here, I’ll help guide you through this:
In a symbiotic relationship, both creatures benefit physically. In a parasitic relationship, one creature benefits while the other is left in worse condition. In the biological sense, these relationships are physical, not emotional, meaning that the situation of a mother that gains satisfaction from pregnancy does not constitute symbiosis. A fetus takes from the mother without giving back. Therefore, it is a parasite. It has the potential to grow up and THEN form a symbiotic bond with its parents, but not while it is still a fetus.
Funny how homo sapiens is the only species for which you’ve decided to define pregnancy as a parasitic infestation.
Face it: a pregnancy is the genesis of a new member of our species. To terminate a pregnancy is to kill a member of your own species. That puts you on the level of a male lion killing all the cubs in the pride because they were fathered by a different alpha male.
I didn’t even mention humans in my reply, you are just assuming that I did. I left the definition in broad terms to show it can applied to any living organism.
I agree that pregnancy is the continuation of life for a species. And yes, technically abortion results in the death of a human. But I have to call you out on your analogy; for one, a lion killing cubs is far different from a mother terminating her pregnancy, seeing as the fetus has not been born. Your comparison would make more sense if it were applied to a step-father who murders his wife’s children simply because he didn’t like the father. Luckily, you don’t hear much about that kind of slaughter, probably because it wouldn’t make sense for someone with no relation to the children to exterminate them.
With the exception of forced abortions, the decision to terminate pregnancy is made by the person who had started it. The mother has the right to determine how to use her body, and if she thinks a fetus interferes with her life, she should have to right to get rid of it. In an ideal world, a less severe decision would be available to allow life to the fetus and freedom to the mother. An example would be the use of surrogate mothers as the vessel to grow the unborn child, or monitored growth in a lab if such an option is viable. Unfortunately, these options are far more expensive than abortion, thus making abortion the best decision for some people. To ban the availability of this decision to productive members of society in favor of potentially productive members would be illogical. To use your lion metaphor, this would be like banishing a lioness with well-established hunting skills from a pride, and instead replacing her with an inexperienced younger lion, simply because a few lions think that giving a chance to the incapable is more important than bettering the quality of their species’ lives.
” a lion killing cubs is far different from a mother terminating her pregnancy, seeing as the fetus has not been born.”
And I’m asking, what difference does that make? A baby or a cub is still just as parasitic after they are born. In fact, an infant demands far more care, support, and the like than a fetus.
Answer this: on what basis do you think infants from birth to a few years old ought to be protected? Why is it wrong for a mother to drown her children?
An infant is not just as parasitic after it is born as a fetus. An infant can survive without being attached to the birth mother, and doesn’t need the birth mother any more. It can be raised by any other person and function the same. It doesn’t need the woman’s nutrients or womb after birth, it can’t look after itself but its sole caregiver doesn’t have to be connected to the woman who birthed it.
A postnatal infant is parasitic in different ways than a prenatal infant. They require dramatic levels of attention and care. Just because the responsibility can be transferred doesn’t make it any less real.
Serious question: do you honestly believe that all prolife people everywhere–men and women alike–have some secret fetish for telling pregnant women what to do? Has it ever crossed your mind that we might actually be solely concerned about the well-being of the child.
you missed the point. The point being that an infant doesn’t have to be attached to the biological mother. Let me ask you, do you have a fetish for unborn fetuses? It’s not a “fetish” when their “care for the well-being of an unborn child” imposes on the right of the woman to choose. You can’t be politically pro-life without wanting to tell a woman what she can and can’t do with her body. If you want abortion illegal, that’s your stance. you can’t sugar coat it.
How does being physically connected to another person invalidate one’s civil rights? If two conjoined twins are both equally viable, you can’t kill one just because he is inconveniencing the other….especially not if they can be safely separated in a matter of months.
it is also not every woman’s goal to pass on her genetic material.
Conjoined twins don’t have to go through painful labor, *conjoined twins don’t have their bodies irreversibly changing from what they once were, conjoined twins don’t have to take care of the other like a parent, conjoined twins don’t have to give the other twin away if they can’t take care of it, conjoined twins don’t have to work to support the other twin, I could go on and on.
The point being is that a pregnant woman has a hell of a lot more on her plate than conjoined twins who can be separated. They are not forced to go through all of the above listed, sure they’re going to have challenges, but their sibling is not as much as an problem as it would be for a pregnant woman.
*Their bodies do change, but as infants they won’t remember their bodies before nor will they have any realizations of the fact after being separated.
I take it you don’t believe in evolution.
Your consciousness is nothing but a bunch of cells incapable of surviving outside of your body. You do not really want to consider that to be life, do you?
Nothing like an involuntary prefrontal lobotomy, right?
Are you single? Cause it’s seriously hard to find a good man these days. And you are obviously both intelligent and moral.
)
Haha. I’m flattered….but nope, so sorry. Very much taken.
perfect! so he can tell you what to do with your body
Perhaps the least substantiable proabortion slur against the prolife position….
oh big words! good boy!
Oh, sorry; I didn’t mean to confuse you.
“durr of all the stuff you people say that’s the most dumbest durr”
When care and precision in language is taken as a sign of affected superiority, humanity has really sunk to its lowest point.
it is not a sing of superiority, it just shows how your lack of good arguments make you use that language to make people think you’re right… kind of obvious
Please, there’s a difference in using a wider vocabulary and purposefully trying to use words to seem intelligent when really all you’re saying is drivel. You’re not fooling anyone.
Apparently, I have; I usually use precise words, but I’m not trying to seem extra intelligent. Never use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent one will do, but never use a fifty-cent word when a five-dollar one works ten times better.
Really, with all the contraceptives available to us these days accidental pregnancies should count for less than one percent of all pregnancies, but people aren’t that sharp.
Given that all the sex education some teens get is “PREMARITAL HANKY-PANKY WILL MAKE YOU GO TO HELL!!” I don’t blame them for being a tad unprepared.
I don’t know what sex ed you went through, but mine was nothing like that.
Neither was mine.
Mine neither, and I was raised by super-hyper-fundamentalists (who I have since smoothed out considerably).
Then why is it that people in the Netherlands ARE that sharp?
Precisely the same as killing a 2 day old newborn.
Of course I’m pro-choice. I had an unplanned pregnancy and I chose to keep him and give him the happiest life ever! No regret!
If people want to kill off their offspring sometimes its for the best. I work in an environment where stupidity is at its highest and to be honest I hope they never breed.
I’m happy for you. Raise him well, for the love of humanity, raise him well. With seven billion people in the world, we have to start going for quality over quantity. Make him the next Nicolas Tesla. As long as he’s brilliant and contributes, I don’t mind if he has OCD and a bird fetish.
Raise him well.
The interesting thing about your comment, Kitty, is that people who make the responsible choice of abortion when they are not prepared for a baby are generally very smart people. Those who just blindly have kids and let the state deal with the cost are generally dumb and shouldn’t be breeding.
Apparently (despite my example), moral character is not directly proportional to intelligence.
Apparently you do not have access to prison statistics. Prisons are filled with dumb people – and Christians. A lot of criminals “find Jesus”. Being smart and Atheist is not a guarantee of being law-abiding and moral, but it is a sharp upward indicator. Someday religious nonsense will take its rightful place in the history books, next to the tales of Alchemy and Astrology.
I think you’re making my point for me. Atheists, being generally both moral and intelligent, are ostensibly exceptions like myself. Most people in prison either lack morality or intelligence, thus fitting my assertion that moral character and intelligence are not automatically correlated.
As far as religious nonsense taking its place in history with alchemy, I can’t wait. Sadly, astrology is still alive and well.
that´s good. I am honestly really lucky for you.
Many people dont seem to get that pro-choice does not necessarily mean pro-abortion. it also contains the choice to keep a baby. it just means keeping the baby is not the only choice, but if one choses to do so (and even better, being happy with the choice) that´s great.
True, choice is meaningless without the choice going either way.
How insulting to any girl who has faced an unplanned pregnancy and has maintained her conviction that unborn life deserves equal protection.
Why would someone who doesn’t share the pro-life position “maintain a conviction” that clearly isn’t theirs? Being pro-life isn’t about dictating what other people should or shouldn’t do with their bodies; it’s about protecting people who cannot yet protect themselves.
Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” By definition, then, such a young woman has clearly experienced complete empathy for others in exactly the same position as she.
Being pro-choice: Advocates choice as well as support for both people who don’t go through with pregnancy as well as support for those that do.
Being pro-life: Advocates forcing women to go through pregnancies and give birth, which for Americans means you need health insurance to cover it, which is extra on normal insurance. So you basically force women to have no choice over their bodies AND you force them into huge debt. Excellent position, really humanitarian. I suppose that you pay for the medical bills for these women to continue with the pregnancy since it’s so important to you? If you would force women to carry pregnancies to term and then not give them all the support they need to carry, give birth to and raise the child, you are a hypocrite and not to be taken seriously.
I like you, you make sense.
There are 4,000 federally funded qualifying clinics that offer free prenatal care to underprivileged patients. So, yes, as a taxpayer, I am paying for these women’s medical care.
What about those not underprivledged, whose overpaid insurance companies don’t cover maternity expenses because they are not requiered to by law? Who are unable to receive care in said clinics because they have insurance..
I got pregnant when I was a teenager. Obviously unplanned. I’d just been accepted to a very competitive program, and the university was not very accommodating to parents.
I kept my child, who is now a thriving, happy kindergartener. Could not continue in school, but having him changed me enough to realize I wasn’t going down a path I really wanted.
It also meant that I realized how unfriendly society as a whole is to motherhood, particularly young and single mothers. So I’ve been doing what I can to change it. The fact that ANY woman feels an abortion is her only option, usually due to finances, is tragic and unacceptable in a civilized society. Children are the future of our countries, our cultures, and they deserve the right to grow out without poverty.
So yes,I am pro-life, because I cannot be okay with any act of violence against a woman’s body (and being forced to kill a part of herself by the patriarchal culture that demonizes motherhood is entirely a violent act) or against a growing, individual human being (I did not say ‘person’ because it is undeniable that a fetus is a genetically distinct human, regardless of its state of dependence, whereas the personhood debate rages on.)
But this stereotype that pro-lifers’ support for unintended pregnancies ends at birth is unfair. Many are like that, but at least as many are not. I am prolife because I think women deserve better than abortion as an answer to the challenges of unintended pregnancies.
okay, let’s discuss a hypothetical situation. say I went to a party on New Year’s Eve and had too much to drink. say a guy who has known me for years decides to have sex with me at this party, while I’m too drunk to give consent or even really know what’s going on. what if this party was in my hometown and I’m attending a university 3 hours away, living with my boyfriend of over a year. what if I’m only halfway through my education and I know that a pregnancy will put my academics and future career at risk. keep in mind that I’m a Dean’s List student, not someone who takes schooling lightly. so, if I were essentially assaulted at a party, by a man who is not my boyfriend, and a resulting pregnancy would force me to take at least one semester off from classes (and thus add the responsibility of paying back loans while pregnant and shortly after giving birth), and quite possibly ruin my relationship and the life I’ve created for myself. can you honestly tell me that in your mind, I should give up everything I’ve spent the last 2 years working for and have a child that I’m not financially, physically, or emotionally ready to care for?
I read something really beautiful once. It’s not a religious belief or a fairytale I think It’s just more of a notion.
It’s the idea that when a baby gets aborted, it’s spirit goes back to wherever babies come from and it keeps coming back until it finds a womb where it’s wanted.
I really like the sound of that.
Exactly. “Don’t worry; it’s okay to have your baby ripped to shreds and vacuumed out. He’ll just keep coming back and getting killed again and again until someone finally lets him live.”
How sweet!!
Given that most of the fuel for the anti-choice movement comes from religious fundamentalists, it’s a valid point to make.
I mean, really, think about it: if there’s an omnipotent, all-powerful, benevolent God ordering everything in the universe, you really can’t have it both ways. He must know that a fetus isn’t going to end up being born (in which case, why impart the fetus with a soul to begin with?).
If he doesn’t know, then he’s not omnipotent. If he isn’t capable of acting to put the soul in a womb that’s actually going to carry to term, then he isn’t all-powerful.
If he knows, ad is capable of acting, but does nothing, then he’s not benevolent.
Ah, the question of evil. Is there a sense in which the existence of suffering is consistent with the existence of a benevolent, omniscient omnipotence? The answer depends largely on how limited one’s understanding of benevolence is.
Wow. And you’re the one who called me a jerk earlier for giving that women a reply to her comment? Oh, it’s okay to insult this person’s beliefs but if I challenge the words of a pro-lifer I’m a jerk? And I’m sorry, but do you know how abortions are actually preformed? Those pictures used by pro-lifers of 8 month old abortions are rare, and coincidentally are more common in places where abortions are illegal. I have a relative who had to have an abortion in the 5 month of her pregnancy because the fetus failed to develop a full brain. It could feel pain, but it would die once it were born. Would you tell that to them too? Because that’s what they believe. Hey, the fetus could feel pain! Isn’t that what you care about?
I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I have no patience for delusional fantasies invented to justify infanticide.
Would I tell what to whom?
Would you say that to the couple who had to abort? and just to clear something up:
(ĭn-făn’tĭ-sīd’) pronunciation
n.
The act of killing an infant.
The practice of killing newborn infants.
One who kills an infant.
The keyword: Infant
infant =/= fetus
Do you even read posts thoroughly or does it go in one ear and out the other?
No, I would not tell the couple who had to abort that their baby would “keep coming back until it found a womb where it was wanted.” That’s horrible.
You say that fetus =/= infant. Why?
What were you before you were born?
A fetus parasitically feeds on another life form. An infant does not.
I would say that your right to the pursuit of happiness does not invalidate you child’s right to life. No person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. If you are unable to care for the child, there are hundreds of families which will be willing to adopt him or her. You do not have the right to punish your child, unexpected though he/she may be, for the crime committed by the opportunistic jackass who assaulted you.
And a woman does not have to be punished for being assaulted by carrying something to term that makes her physically and emotionally sick. I almost had to make that decision, and I am so lucky that I didn’t get pregnant. I will try my hardest to refrain from being a jerk to you personally, but how can you say that after he forced me against my will I also have to carry that fetus in me against my will as well? I would’ve had to gone through labor, changes in my body, and guess what? I was 11 years old too, how do you expect an 11 year old body to cope with such a thing? Not every woman who is assaulted is assaulted when her body is in perfect condition. If other people can do it, amazing. good for them. But I’m telling you as a person that I can’t. I would grow emotionally attached to something I don’t even want, and giving it away would tear me up inside.
Please tell me why you want to make that choice for me? Is it still about the fetus? What if it happened to your own daughter?
Given that you were assaulted in this senario, why are you with such a loser who would ‘quite possibly ruin’ your relationship? The choice is yours to make, but you should maybe reconsider your man.
How about we make a deal. The women who are able to get pregnant, carry the fetus to full term, give birth, and then either keep the child or give it up for adoption, all without dying, becoming ill, becoming disabled, losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their families, or plummeting into financial ruin, they can go ahead and do just that. And in the meantime they can understand that their situation is unique and that someone else’s situation might no provide the same opportunities. They can understand that pregnancy and childbirth are not always a case of sunshine and roses and maintain enough empathy in their hearts to realize that abortion is sometimes the least of the evils. And they can stay out of other people’s business. Deal? Deal.
“Maintain enough empathy….” You misspelled ignorance.
I love it when prochoice (which, granted is different from pro-abortion, e.g. Planned Parenthood) people use the example of children suffering from poverty or abuse. Clearly they aren’t pro-choice when it comes to child abuse. Clearly, they see no need to “stay out of other people’s business” when it comes to poverty or malnutrition. Does a child magically go from worthless to valuable as soon as it starts breathing? How superstitious.
Pro-choice is about the choice to choose between life and death, that means they are pro-war, pro-euthanasia, pro-abortion while also advocating the possibility of no war, no euthanasia and no abortion, or, you know, being able to choose. Being pro-life means you want to preserve life no matter the condition, like, for instance, if you’ve become a vegetable and the only thing that is keeping you alive is machines; they are also anti-war and anti-euthanasia. That’s it. Everything else that you mentioned has nothing to do with those philosophies. It doesn’t matter if a child or fetus has worth or not.
BTW, just out of curiosity, what gives a human worth? I’m not being sarcastic or anything, I genuinely want to know your opinion on what makes a human life have worth. For me, it’s a positive contribution to society which advances human understanding, like philosophy or science or religion, which can be applied to help better the quality of life. Of course, there’s a lot of people that don’t apply to that category, myself included, but it goes double for the idiot who thought of reality TV.
Your categorization makes no sense; there are plenty of pro-life people who support what they believe to be just war. You’re describing Catholics and not much else.
Here’s the proper terminology.
Prolife (most Americans): Unborn children have all the characteristics which make us individual human beings, and this deserve equal protection under the Constitution.
Prochoice (media, academia, and many Americans): Until an infant takes its first breath, it is not human. Despite appearances and DNA, it is still part of the woman’s body and deserves no civil rights. Abortion is a personal choice.
Proabortion (Planned Parenthood and most “women’s advocacy” groups): We support women’s rights as long as they choose abortion. We will not provide prenatal care to pregnant women who want to keep their babies.
Regarding the question of what makes a human life have worth: our society and laws are dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and are endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and property. Under the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment, no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. So our question is not whether a fetus has worth, but whether a fetus is a person. Asserting that lung activity alone determines personhood seems dangerously arbitrary to me.
“Your categorization makes no sense; there are plenty of pro-life people who support what they believe to be just war. You’re describing Catholics and not much else.”
I’m a little confused by this paragraph. The pro-life movement started from an essay written by a Catholic and further by other essays done by the Church. The pro-life movement is initially based in Catholic doctrine. The culture of life is in opposition to the culture of death (both terms coined or given their modern definition by Pope John Paul II). It opposes practices destructive of human life, often including abortion, euthanasia, research on human embryonic stem cells, contraception, capital punishment, unjust war, sadistic humiliation, narcissism, and excessive selfishness. It promotes agape love and charity, matrimony, maternity, fatherhood, life, chastity, fidelity, virtue, and organ donation.
What many pro-choice supporters and others seem to forget, is that pro-life includes far more issues than just abortion. So anyone that argues that those who are against abortion should also be against capital punishment etc, hasn’t done their research.
The Catholic pro-life stance certainly encompasses more than anti-abortion politics. However, the last time I checked, the pro-life majority in America is not uniformly Roman Catholic. Just because someone believes that prenatal children deserve human rights doesn’t mean that they automatically buy into the entire “Catholic pro-life” mantra.
Fair enough,. I just read Jackie’s post as the often argued point of, “well if you’re pro-life you should be anti-war, anti-capital punishment, etc.” I’m saying that the argument isn’t valid because the pro-life movement started as all those things from the Catholic Church. That there are people who are pro-euthanasia who are pro-life can not be used as some form of detraction from the pro-life movement.
If most Americans were pro-life, you would already have the foetus being protected under your constitution. Seeing as the “Personhood” bills have been shot down by even the most conservative states, it’s safe to say you’re probably wrong on that point.
Also, Planned parenthood provides prenatal care. You saying that they refuse to care for people unless they want abortions is ridiculous and willfully ignores reason and logic.
Policy is not decided by popular vote. Although 50-52% of Americans still categorically oppose abortion, Roe v Wade declared all anti-abortion laws “unconstitutional” quite a while ago. The Supreme Court has never cared what the people think.
Not that that’s a bad thing; I’m not saying that the judicial bench should be swayed by popular opinion or anything.
As far as the prenatal care thing is concerned….check your facts. Only sixty Planned Parenthood clinics have a maternity physician who can offer prenatal care; the other 730 clinics will only provide abortion or abortion referrals. 98% of pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood will have an abortion. Pro-choice? Hardly.
Did you know that 98% of your facts on Planned Parenthood’s clientele is BS (well, more like 100%)? Funny story, your figure should actually be closer to 10% of women who go into Planned Parenthood get an abortion, and abortion only accounts for 3% of the services that they offer.
http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/planned-parenthood/
Pro-Choice? Definitely. Offering the service does not mean that they coerce women into doing it. If anything, Planned Parenthood is pro-sexual education and pro-STD/cancer prevention.
If you bothered to read the rest of my posts here, you would see that I have already cited those statistics in detail.
The 3% statistic is meaningless, because an abortion includes a preop visit, an ultrasound, a D&C, and a postop visit….only one of which actually gets counted under “abortions”. Like you said, one in ten patients receive abortions. 98% of pregnant patients receive abortions.
If Planned Parenthood was really encouraging choice, then the ratio of abortions to births would be a little lower than 50 to 1.
Has it ever occurred to you that women go there with their decision already at hand? I’d love to see some proof of Planned Parenthood saying “Oh, you’re pregnant? Abortion, Abortion, or…Abortion?” They are there to provide the service, not to change the minds of people. Ways to prevent abortion is good sexual education, access to birth control and other contraceptives, and services for unprivileged persons who can’t even afford to take care of any children they already have.
I already provided an example of one of the largest clinics doing precisely that. Of course, because my post had a link, it’s still awaiting moderation. If you’re impatient, you can Google “Planned Parenthood tells pregnant woman they can’t help her because she won’t abort” — I think that was the name of the article.
Abortion is voluntary. Sex ed, while a very good thing, is not how you stop abortions. You stop abortions by not aborting. The number of abortions has gone up 1500% since it was made legal.
Abortion is always the worst choice.
Wow, I knew it would come from a pro-life propaganda website, but I’ll give this article the benefit of the doubt….where is the other articles on this incident? Not just some pro-life website, where are the news crews and other websites talking about this? Do you think it’s some conspiracy that the media wants to shush this case? I’ve searched every page of google with the same tag lines and found ONLY the pro-life website reporting this. You’d think that something to this extent would make it to the news, even if it’s just a little underground publication.
I read the article, and it’s very sketchy in the facts. Why isn’t this Addison girl on the news “exposing” them for what they really are? She can hide her identity completely and perhaps get word from her parents or her fiance. But all I can find on this girl is on this one article, one little article that has dubious information. I’m sorry, but this unidentified girl and her story is one thing, if there were more stories then they would have a case against them.
This is one Planned Parenthood, you need more evidence than this. How do you know the website didn’t make this story up? Honestly, before you read something on the internet, fact check it. Find other articles about the same incident, news reports. Trust me, if this really happened it wouldn’t be a small blurb.
But, if it were true then the clinic should be investigated. I wouldn’t support forcing one way or the other and I’ve already stated such. But Planned Parenthood can not be blamed entirely for this one article. How do you feel about crisis pregnancy centers saying they only give support to people who are carrying their pregnancy to term? Is that good in your eyes?
Have you ever heard of Terri Schiavo? That was a famous and serious case between pro-life and pro-choice over a woman who had so much trauma, she was only being kept alive by machines. So famous, in fact, South Park even had an episode parodying the case. Find an example of a case as high in the media that does not have someone who is pro-choice and pro-life going at it and then I’ll accept your definition.
Being human evidently gives us the right to live, but is every life worth that right to live? Is Charles Manson worthy of life? Was Osama bin Laden worthy of life? Was Gandhi worthy of life? Was Jesus worthy of life? Was Tex Avery worthy of life? You might say yes to some and no to others but doesn’t bin Laden and Gandhi have the same worth as a fetus? Weren’t they once fetuses themselves and thus had the right to live a full life until they died of natural causes? Didn’t THEY deserve life?
Tell me, what makes a child worthy of the right to live, what makes a fetus just as worthy as Charles Manson and Jesus to life. Please, enlighten the seven billion and growing people of the world The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything since you know what gives a fetus worth enough for it to be blessed with the Gift of Life and not be aborted no matter if it was created by assault or a broken condom or if it is slowly killing its own mother or is going to be born into a abusive environment or it gonna turn out to be a serial killer or the President of the United States. Tell us, You, You Who Knows What We Do Not, what makes a fetus so goddam special, as special as Stalin was, as special as George Washington was. DO TELL.
Laying your extravagant use of ad hominem and non sequitur fallacies aside….
“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
That is all.
WOW YOU’RE SO SMART AND EDUCATED
you are right, i am wrong. smart…
Pardon me for using complete sentences and accurate punctuation. It’s actually a disability; I have an obsessive compulsion with proper syntax and accurate semantics. Please excuse me.
i perfectly understand what you say, but saying it and assuming i dont understand it is not a disorder nor a disease. it only makes you a stuck up prick. nobody talked about your punctuation or your wanna-be smart talking, im talking about your arguments, which are lame.
Citation needed.
same circular “arguments” you know what im talking about arent you super smart?
Unfortunately, no; my intelligence does not enable me to read your mind.
Only one argument has been offered: that all human beings deserve equal protection under the law. Your misapplication of fallacies and use of ad hominem does not effectively rebut.
That’s a **right**, not what gives a person worth. You’re dancing around the question. Besides, that’s an AMERICAN right. What about the rest of the world? Some countries aren’t guaranteed that right. Some countries don’t have that right at all. Also, your quote applies to those who CAN own property and CAN be brought to justice and CAN go through due process. A fetus cannot be charged with criminal acts, the last time I checked, nor can it pay taxes, vote or own land (unless, I guess, it has a guardian sign something to it). That quote is completely unrelated. If anything, you should have used, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. That way you can argue that they have the right to life, the liberties that come with living in American and the chance to be born so that it can, in fact, go on its happy little way (as long as it doesn’t involve murder, larceny, loitering in certain areas and sending bombs through the mail).
But a right doesn’t give someone worth. This isn’t a right or wrong question but it can’t be answered by quoting a right that can be found only in some places on Earth. It’s philosophical. Hell, you could have answered with a quote from the Bible or the Koran or the Torah or the Kama Sutra or your favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strip; you could have even answered, “Because God says so,” and I’d say, “Okay, whatever, I respect your opinion and I will drop the matter now. I quite enjoyed having this back and forth with you and maybe I will send you some delicious fudge someday; BTW, are you allergic to nuts or chocolate? I’d like to know this ahead of time so that way I don’t accidentally poison you because I don’t like murdering people and getting assaulted in the shower however they would do it in female prison. Wink-wink, smiley face.”
So, I ask once more: What makes a person, any person, worthy of the right to live? TO the right to live, not THE right to live.
The point I was making earlier was simply that government only exists to protect rights that already exist; they don’t create them or grant them. Looks like we agree on that point.
My personal position is that life and consciousness are gifts granted by God to human beings created according to divine will. The chief end of mankind is to glorify and enjoy God, and the right to life springs from this intended end.
And thanks for the offer of fudge! I’m not allergic to anything, but I don’t like peanut butter overmuch.
The movie Gataca covered the idea of worth. The main character should have been aborted for his faults but overcame them to succeed in a society that didn’t place any value on him at all. The worth of a person cannot be measured until the end of their life. Does worth come from giving something back? If so then it takes a good number of years after birth for a child to aquire worth. I am actually pro-choice, but basing your argument on the idea of worth is scary. What are you worth?
Some Planned Parenthoods provide the full range of services. It really depends on the size of the center.
Also, other services (like pap smears) you don’t really need a strong, ongoing relationship with an individual doctor; you really don’t even need an MD, a physicians assistant can do all that. But for prenatal care, you need an obstetrician, not just a gyno, so that’s at least double the MDs on staff.
8% of PP clinics offer prenatal care; 40% offer abortions. Guess that shows which choice they are trying to endorse.
Only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services are for abortion. Learn about them as a whole and the good they do before you assume they’re pumping out abortions left and right. They also do STD screening, help women who are pregnant (who aren’t just seeking abortions), and help out with birth control and cervical cancer screenings. Not only that, but my school had someone from Planned Parenthood speak about teen pregnancy at my school, and they did a great job.
The 3% statistic, while widely cited, is wildly misleading. Out of the 3 million patients who visited Planned Parenthood last year, 330,000 had abortions. That’s more than one in ten….not a paltry 3%. What’s more, 98% of pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood are given abortions. Only sixty clinics nationwide offer prenatal care; the rest will only provide abortions or abortion referrals. Awfully pro-choice, huh?
There are 4,000 federally qualifying health clinics nationwide that provide STD screening, prenatal care, voluntary birth control, and cancer screens, all free to underprivileged patients. They are five times more common than Planned Parenthood clinics.
I’d love to see where you got the “only will provide abortions or abortion referrals” from. Care to show me?
I’ve been to the one close to my house plenty of times and they offer counseling to pregnant woman and don’t push them to choose abortion. How do I know? Because it took them the longest time to approve a friend in my therapy group when I went with her for an abortion. It wasn’t like she just walked in, took a number, and got to see a doctor right away. The clinics that push one way or the other would not be a place I support, but you can’t rule out the non abortion services they do. I’ve volunteered at “pregnancy crisis centers” which were really covers for pro-life centers who provided false information and scare tactics to stop women from getting abortions. I left and volunteered at another once I realized what they were doing. Do I think that the Planned Parenthood clinics that encourage abortion are right? No. Do I think that the pregnancy crisis centers that encourage keeping the fetus right? No. I don’t discredit the good these places do though.
Here’s where the statistic comes from:
http://liveaction.org/blog/less-than-8-of-planned-parenthoods-provide-prenatal-care-40-do-abortions/
I tried to call Tait Sye, the national spokesperson for PP, to confirm these figures, but of course PP’s offices are closed for MLK day. I decided not to bother him on his cellphone.
In any case, here’s at least one example of a young student being denied care at one of the largest Planned Parenthood clinics because she refused to have an abortion:
http://bound4life.com/blog/2011/11/21/planned-parenthood-tells-pregnant-woman-they-can-t-help-her-because-she-won-t-abort
Planned Parenthood provides prenatal care.
deal
“No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice‑cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg. Abortion is a tragic attempt to escape a desperate situation by an act of violence and self‑loss.”
Frederica Mathewes-Green, “Unplanned Parenthood,” Policy Review, Summer 1991.
Adopt
Are you adopting?
Adoption studies show that families strongly prefer adopting white or hispanic babies to black babies, yet black children are disproportionately represented in adoption pools. For all those that say ‘adopt out’ – are you just saying that to white women? Because the groups that financially (and perhaps physically, what with lack of health insurance) are minority groups AND their babies are less likely to be adopted if they carry it to term! What choices are you giving those who are affected the most?
Disproportionately fewer African-American infants are put up for adoption, due to the extreme lack of adoption education in African-American communities. Planned Parenthood targets minority neighborhoods because the lower education will make frightened women more likely to believe that Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills are their only option.
Why don’t we all just agree that when a woman gets pregnant it’s her body, her life and her choice. What other people choose to do is their own buisness and has no effect whatsoever on you or your life. In the end we can all only be responsible for our own choices and our own lives.
That’s right, but the big question is, “What about the fetus? Is it a person? Does it have rights? Is it just a part of the mother? Doesn’t it deserve to live?” That’s a major part of the debate which in twisted in the rights of the woman.
A pregnant woman can walk into a bar and order a drink, and you legally have to serve one to her. To deny her a drink is a human rights violation because in the eyes of the law that fetus is part of her body and she can do whatever she wants with it while it’s in her and we’re not allowed to say or do a damn thing about it.
By this same law, a woman can get an abortion if she wants to.
I wasn’t stating an opinion. It’s a fact that a woman’s bodily right and her fetus’s right clash if she wants to get rid of said fetus. I’m not stating whether or not she should or shouldn’t have an abortion, I’m just sa–WHAT THE FRUCK! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE CAN BE SERVED ALCOHOL?! WHAT SICK PERSON DOES THAT?! Jesus butt-frucking Mary, I mean…it doesn’t have to be a law, but…I mean…the owner has the right to refuse serve to people, right? I mean, if someone’s THAT IRRESPONSIBLE, she’s gonna KILL it, whether in the womb or after it’s born. I mean, the CPA called, it wants to take your kid away, sheesh.
That example, if true (which I hope desperately with all my heart it isn’t), just shows stupid people shouldn’t breed.
I know you weren’t stating an opinion, neither was I. I was just representing a possible argument. And I agree with you 100% on the serving-pregnant-women-alcohol thing. If anything, I think that drinking while pregnant is worse than having an abortion because the woman has made the descision to carry the baby and give birth and now she’s potentially poisoning this baby that she’s promised to take care of and look after.
Messed up isn’t it.
I worked in the food service industry for several years; AFAIK a vendor has the right to refuse sale to any person for any reason. Of course, I doubt any restaurant would make that their policy.
Wait, wait…you’re saying to me that they wouldn’t make it there policy to refuse alcoholic beverages to ****pregnant women****?
Pregger Lady: F*ck the place! F*ck it! Never go there again!
Friend of Lady: What? What happened? What place?
PL: Those d*psh*ts at the bar refused me service!
FoL: Wh–wait, what?
PL: I wanted a f*cking martini!
FoL: *pauses, looks at PL’s eight-month-along stomach and pats seat next to her* Sweetie, I think you should reconsider ever having children ever.
Wherever you worked…didn’t they ever hear of fetal-alcohol syndrome?
Don’t you think we are responsible for our children’s lives as well?
Yes, but a fetus is not a child by legal or medical standards.
A fetus is a unique member of the species homo sapiens. Under what legal or medical definition is it not a child?
because it has no concience and can not live independently. it needs the body of another being to sustain its life. a body who is not always willing and is sometimes forced.
yes, a fetus with no concience or phisical pain has waaay more rights that fully grown thinking people. way to go with that logic, aint ya?
I love how you totally provided medical and legal definitions instead of making up arbitrary ungrammatical drivel….oh, wait; never mind.
Conscience. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Perhaps you are talking about consciousness. At least, I would hope so.
It is perfectly logical to assert that all human beings have the right to life, liberty, and property, in that order.
oh now you talk about my grammar? im not a native speaker forgive me allmighty. talking about my gramar shows nothing more that you dont have any valid arguments. you just keep telling the same. its pretty easy to understand.
FETUSES CANT THINK. EMBRYOS CANT FEEL. EMBRIOS HAVE NO MORE RIGHTS THAN A WOMAN IN MOST COUNTRIES, INCLUDING YOURS.
dont ilke it? dont get an abortion… oh wait, youre a guy and will never get pregnand… i guess that gives you a right to decide what is good or bad for our body and make you good enough to decide for ourselves.
i am talking about the capability of making desitions, of thinking. a thing embrios or fetuses cant to. why are they worth more than me? i dont know, but keep talking about life liberty and property in that order, you will never get pregnant anyways.
What is this I don’t even
theawkward moment when you run out of arguments right?
No; it’s just prohibitively difficult to decipher such unintelligible gibberish. But I’ll give it my best shot.
From what it seems, you are asserting that the temporary inability of a fetus to feel sensation or form abstract thoughts makes it somewhat less human and thus less deserving of equal protection. However, this is a completely arbitrary standard. We don’t consider quadriplegics like Stephen Hawking to be 10% human because they lack 90% of their feeling, and we don’t consider infants to be less human because they cannot form conscious thoughts.
Here’s the question you will have to answer if you want to do better: what is it about a prenatal infant that makes her less deserving of protection than a postnatal infant?
i consider infants less human.
Then you are a consistent (albeit rare) representative of the pro-choice philosophy.
because he lost his capacities. fetuses never had it.
and about your question, i already clearified it several times: THE ABILITY TO THINK AND FEEL… that enough?
btw, infant is from 1 to 3 years old, so… you little ocd prick who thinks you can decide over MY body… youre not as smart ass as you think
So if you’re born quadriplegic, then you’re not really human; if you become quadriplegic due to an accident or illness, you remain human all along? Just trying to figure out how you’re making these assessments.
A postnatal infant is no more capable of thought or feeling than a prenatal infant, so “feeling and thought” are a poor basis for denying children their civil rights.
being quadraplegic doesnt mean you dont feel or dont think, do you even know what it means?
and yes, a fetus start feeling at a ccertain stage of the pregnancy, and start thinking after birth.
Of course a quadriplegic retains some feeling. But your assertion that no feeling means no humanity is predicated on the assumption that less feeling means less humanity….an assumption for which quadriplegics provide an obvious counterexample.
So if an infant doesn’t start thinking until some time after birth, it isn’t fully human until a few months later? So it should be okay to kill 5-week-old infants under your argument?
well, that´s what pro-choice actually means: wanting everyone to make their own choices (duh) because it´s their business and nobody elses. the problem here is that the pro-life people don´t agree with that.
I’m 19 years old and one unplanned pregnancy later, I’m still pro life.
Thanks, hon.
that is your case and we respect you. respect our beliefs too. none of other people bussiness.
i get pregnant just so i can abort it.
yes you can only if you want to. but you shouldnt get pregnant on pourpose if you dont want it
Obvious troll is obvious.
When abortions have been illegal / difficult to obtain, women still found ways to abort when they (felt they) needed to. Herbs, pointy objects in the nether regions, whatever it took. Or they bore the child and then left them to die. Unplanned pregnancy is not a modern problem, and if we don’t provide modern solutions, women will still find a way.
Every time a woman has ever been injured or killed by an illegal or unsafe abortion, it was the action of someone who was pro-choice.
So, in that case, it’s ok to lose 2 lives in your opinion? The pregnant woman was someone’s daughter you know. Why not legalize it and make it safe? Regulate it?
No, it’s not okay to lose either life.
Sometimes you can’t have it both ways… This is someone’s life we’re talking about. Are you willing to adopt the resulting child the woman you forced to birth with your pro-life laws? If not, I suggest you leave it to them, since you won’t take responsibility for the choice YOU made.
How the hell are they responsible? Making it illegal resorts to such acts, because let me tell you it doesn’t stop. Pro-lifers who took away that woman’s choice to have it safely done in a hospital setting where pain is controlled and she is provided with emotional and physical help are to blame for such things.
The pro-choice crowd gave that safe environment, the pro-life crowd wants to take it away. You can’t say that you don’t want to take that hospital away while being pro-life, you can’t. And if you say “Well, it’s not safe because it’s not safe for the fetus” then you are to blame for the women who die trying to deal with their situation. if the “abortion mills” aren’t staring you in the face you can pretend that abortion doesn’t exist.
Actually this comic is true. A friend of mine, conservative, pro-life and married got pregnant by her husband she was thinking about leaving and was thinking about getting rid of the pregnancy. Me, the pro-choice evil liberal, told her to grow up and have the kid. She stayed married and kept the child but I couldn’t respect her after that.
I was 23 unmarried with an unplanned pregnancy. My daughter was born out of wedlock. Her father and I got married a few months later and 12 years later we are still together and our daughter has a younger brother (10) and sister (4). There was never a time when becoming pro-choice crossed my mind. As I have always said “you do the crime, you do the time” which I have lived by.
Well, hasn’t everything worked out perfectly for you, special little snowflake?
What about the women who didn’t do the “crime” as you have chosen to phrase it? If she was assaulted? What then?
“There was never a time when becoming pro-choice crossed my mind” Um, excuse me , but keeping your child was your choice. You weren’t forced, sure you could say that your beliefs were your “force”, but in the end you could’ve picked adoption if abortion is out of your mind completely. If you wouldn’t want someone telling you to not have your baby, why would you tell someone they should?
What if that motto you live by was applied to you during your pregnancy and you were being told that the moral, correct, and right thing to do was to abort? “you do the crime, you do the time”
Another thing I wanted to ask, do you care about what happens to this child after it’s forced to be born? What if the mother just doesn’t care and does whatever with it? Adoption? I went to school with hundreds of foster and adopted kids, and it’s never a miracle or a “better situation” Congrats for you and your daughter and I hope you both have a great life, but it’s not always the best solution for everyone.
Don’t be a jerk; she’s just using “pro-choice” as a euphemism for “choosing abortion” just like the OP above. Everyone knows that “pro-choice” in this context means choosing abortion.
Also, I take exception to the assertion that adoption is never a “miracle” or a “better situation”. I grew up with 8 adopted siblings in a loving home that was vastly better than the orphanage where they had been. The idea that my siblings would have been better off dead is horribly insensitive and offensive.
How am I being a jerk? It was her choice, and the point I am making is that she got her chance to choose and so should everyone. It’s great that you had adopted siblings and they all had an amazing life, but that’s not always so. Your 8 siblings doesn’t negate the fact that there are more homeless teens because they never got adopted or their adopted/fostered life is horrible. Your siblings have a good life, why would they be “better off dead”? They were lucky and got adopted to a nice family, you’re acting like I condone killing any and all children who’ve been in the system.
But I want to ask you, now. Do you care about the life of this child you want to force women to have? There are plenty of children out there who have already been born and need help, and instead of forcing women to not have a choice we should be focusing on them. A girl I was casual friends with at school didn’t get a choice and was forced to have her child. Do you think “well, she spread her legs so she has to deal with it!”? Well guess what now? Her child is around drugs, abuse, and the many problems this girl has. I don’t know about you, but if she had gotten the abortion she wanted, that child wouldn’t be suffering right now.
And adoption? Ha, child services has taken the kid away and she’s gotten it back so many times that her 5 year old doesn’t even call her “mommy”. I’ve tried to get involved too, and she had to go to rehab for a year to get her son back but guess what? She’s back on drugs again.
My mom had both me and my brother at bad times in her life, and without us she probably would’ve had it easier. If someone told me I could change the past and be aborted to give my own mother a better life, I’d take it.
This OP asserts that every pro-life individual who faces an unplanned pregnancy will choose to abort. Jgerber provided a counterexample. You don’t need to crucify her for using the word “pro-choice” to describe choosing abortion.
This debate has nothing to do with preventing women from making their own choices or “getting what they deserve” — that’s sexist and criminal. I just want to make sure all people get equal protection under the law. That’s all.
You said that you would have sacrificed your life to improve your mother’s life. That’s a noble sentiment. Even so, what gives you the right to impose that choice on unborn children?
Not only is this post a joke, but I am in way crucifying this woman. You do have a knack for using emotionally charged language. If she can’t take something being pointed out to her or if you can’t, then don’t post.
Now you said “This debate has nothing to do with preventing women from making their own choices” And I would agree, women should have to make their own choices. Then you said “I just want to make sure all people get equal protection under the law. That’s all.” By that I infer you want to protect an unborn fetus…..but isn’t that contradicting to your statement before? Because wouldn’t you have to restrict a woman’s choice by “protecting” a fetus? And you didn’t answer my question either about already born children. Your stance can be appreciated if you take all of this passion and apply it to already living children.
I know my mother would sacrifice her own life to save me any day of the week, she deserves that same amount of love back. My mom worked at an abortion clinic and helped escort women since people protested every single day. She had to quit because it was such a rough and horrible job, seeing those distraught women crying and having pictures of mangled 7 month fetuses shoved in their faces. It’s not easy for anyone, and if you want abortion to be illegal you should watch 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days. It shows you just how awful it is to go through an illegal abortion because let me tell you, illegal doesn’t mean it stops. What stops is safe, easy access to it. And what gives me the right? I’ll tell you. It’s my (or another woman’s) own body and unless they can somehow transplant the fetus into someone else’s uterus, it’s my choice to have. A woman’s body is not the same after pregnancy, and some women will naturally have risks associated with pregnancy. It’s great if some women can have children at any age or any time and have little troubles, but it’s not always the case.
“Wouldn’t you have to restrict a woman’s choice by ‘protecting’ a fetus?”
Just like you have to restrict a child abuser’s choice in order to protect children and restrict a råpist’s choice in order to protect his victim.
Of course I care about the lives of children after they are born. That pretty much goes without saying.
Whether abortions are illegal or not, they are always fatal. We don’t provide angsty teens “safe and easy access” to cyanide, no matter how worried we are that they may kill themselves in a more grotesque way.
assault and child abuse are vastly different from abortion, and as a person who has suffered from both I would never compare them. For one thing, assault and child abuse effects people who are born, and who are persons as defined by law and medicine. A person by definition is “one (as a human being, a partnership, or a corporation) that is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties” as found on merriam-webster While a fetus after a certain stage in pregnancy can respond to pain, we can not assume that it has the level of consciousness that a assault victim or a child abuser victim has.What rights and duties does a fetus legally have? Point me to it, point to me where there is a law that says that fetuses have rights and/or duties? Even children have limited rights (speaking of rights in the United States) You are comparing a woman who wants or has had an abortion to that of a assaulter or a child abuser (even if you don’t see it that way).
The difference between angsty teenagers and fetuses is that a teenager has been born and is classified as a person by law and medicine *see above*. Again, you can’t compare the two.
I completely agree, fetuses are not defined as persons by law. I am simply asking why they shouldn’t be.
Finally, after reading almost all your comments I find the reason why you are posting all this.
Why are fetuses not defined as persons by law?
That is a fine question, but, what happens if fetuses would be defined as a person? Doing so would cause all women to become legally accusable of murder when they choose to abort their pregnancy (since it would be a murdering of their own child).
You could also rephrase this as:
“Abortion becomes murder and thus forbidden”
Now I have read your comments, and you don’t agree with taking away the choice of all pregnant women, right?
Then my question is, do you want fetuses defined as persons by law? Or do you just want to be philosophical? Or do you want abortion to be classified as murder?
edit: Just read your quotation of that site you apparantly really value highly. It basicly says: “don’t do something you wouldn’t want to experience yourself”
That isn’t a bad rule right? If you don’t like bullying, don’t bully?
Then again, you could say that abortion is killing something, but what is it that you kill? What is the fetus to you?
I just think that a choice should be given (so I guess I am on the other side of the arguers?….so be it then) to all women so they can give the final judgement themselves.
Call me too rational, but this is the 21st century.
Well, you are probably going to tear this post a new one, just like all the others. I’m not saying you’re right in doing so, I just know you stand firm to your beliefs and you will probably stand even firmer towards them as soon as someone says they’re wrong. I don’t blame you for that. Actually, why am I even posting? I guess it’s my lust for arguments and telling people my own beliefs. Don’t we all?
It’s getting harder and harder to contain myself as bits and pieces of your beliefs keep coming out. A woman’s uterus is being used to house a fetus against her will and I can’t believe you’d look someone in the eye and tell them that if they were assaulted and got pregnant they should be forced, read f-o-r-c-e-d to carry it to term because you, someone who doesn’t have to go through all of the pain and the shame cares more about the well-being of a fetus (of course, most cases of terminated pregnancies are within the zygote-embryo stage of pregnancy). more than the rights of this woman.
Do you know what some pro-life people in political power want to do? They want to make zygotes, embryos and fetuses classified as persons and prosecute women who miscarry. I know you probably feel the same about me, but I can’t fathom the idea of this country forcing women to carry to term their assaulter’s child. I hope that it never happens to someone you love, not only because assault is horrible and completely degrading and torturous experience…but because they’d have to deal with you and knowing that you’d force them to carry it to term if you could decide.
“You do the time, you do the crime?”
So you’re saying that sex is wrong and having babies is a punishment for it?
No, it’s just an old saying I use, but sometimes raising a 12 year old daughter does feel like punishment. (that’s a joke by the way, as is some days I want to be called something other than “Mom” because it feels like every 5 minutes someone is yelling Mom)
I understand. After I read your reply, I looked back over my comment and realized how snarky it sounded. Sorry.
Just to clarify the point I was making and maybe re-phrase it in a friendlier way: I don’t think that having an abortion is a way of escaping the consequences of sex. I think that saves women from being trapped in an unfortunate situation. I’m glad to hear that it all worked out for you and that you and your kids are doing very well. But it doesn’t turn out that way for everybody. And then there are some people who just flat out don’t want to have kids. At all. And I think that it’s well within their rights to choose or not choose parenthood.
I love how males seem to know what’s best for my female anatomy. Seriously, you want to have the option of deciding if a child is aborted or not? Get a uterus.
Abortion is not a reproductive right if it infringes on another person’s rights.
Since fetuses are not classified as persons and hopefully will never be, you have no argument about it infringing on their rights when they have none.
Also, all you pro-lifers, are you also pro putting the mother on welfare to care for said child? Giving the child medical benefits, free daycare for the mother to attend work or school, providing an education for the mother? I didn’t think so…
And MARRIED women have unplanned pregnancies. I did. I was married, in school, a husband who was laid off and on unemployment and 2 other children. I had to think of my BORN children first. I was on BC, but it failed. An IUD that slipped without my knowing. Not all abortions are made by “wh—s who don’t keep their legs closed” give me a break…
All three of my pregnancies were unplanned, and things such as finances and housing and putting food on the table have been a struggle for us since the beginning. Our lives (meaning the lives of myself, husband and our 3 children) have been far from perfect, but my husband and I can’t imagine our lives without anyone of our children. Each of them bring something special and challening to the family. The idea of ending any of their lives before being born is just unfathomable to me. We may struggle everyday, but we are stronger as a family.
FLUTTERSHY IS THE BEST PONY
My 12 year old daughter agrees with you!
So true!!!!
The way I’ve always seen it is that the only people who should decide on ANY legislation or jury ruling regarding abortion, unborn rights, etc are women. We men are unable to conceive children, and I believe that should bar us from commenting on the issue. (in the same way the US cannot pass laws and expect them to be enforced in Canada, Mexico or anywhere else)
But, since that’s unlikely to ever happen and I’ve already said this much, I guess I should add my two cents. The government is intended to protect its civilians when they are unable to do so (hunting down and prosecuting violent offenders, tax dodgers, what-have-you), but that protection is centered on our most core value of freedom. In the same way wire-tapping is illegal because of its incredible infringement on privacy (despite potentially stopping many assaults and murders before they were able to occur), an anti-abortion law should be equally illegal on the basis of a woman’s freedom to decide what is best for her life. Think of it this way, perhaps. If someone enters your house with a weapon and intends to harm you, you are, under the law, allowed to fight back with deadly force if that’s what it takes to maintain your safety and the safety of those around you. An abortion strikes me as being rather similar, especially in cases of the mother being in danger of death or serious injury by carrying the baby to term. If someone or something is going to harm you if you don’t react, then you react and protect yourself. Our government should not be able to tell us when we can and cannot defend ourselves from reasonable threats.
This is completely ignoring the ‘legalize marijuana’ argument of a black market developing, harming those you’re trying to protect with such a law. Abortions would still take place, just in seedy basement operating rooms as opposed to sterilized, properly-funded and -staffed ones.
We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My pursuit of happiness can’t infringe on your life or liberties.
No pro-life activist has ever performed an illegal abortion. The horror of illegal abortions are perpetrated solely by people who are pro-choice.
As someone who is pro-choice, I would never preform an illegal abortion on a woman that would endanger her health so dramatically. If I had all the right qualifications I still wouldn’t, not for fear of punishment but for fear that I would kill her. People who provide them aren’t some activists looking to help someone, they are looking to make money or something else in their gain. I don’t think anyone would risk the death of the woman in some hotel room just because of their own opinions.
I don’t think girls who ask their boyfriend’s to kick them in the stomach when they can’t get an abortion are doing it because they are pro-choice.
And you can’t deny that if it were legal and remained legal, there would be no scenes as dramatic in the film 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days.
Heh, you know what I find funny? So many people here are talking about the dangers of pregnancy, when very few look into the dangers of abortion as well. Now, I tend to see both sides of the issue, and I can understand the argument that the child may not have a good life or that the woman’s life will be ruined, but what I don’t get is why pro-choice people are calling out something that woman have been able to do successfully for thousands of years without a doctor’s help. Sure, a lot of women do die in childbirth, but last time I check, there were a significantly lower amount of those deaths here because we have, you know, first world health care.
Now, there are a lot of poorer women who want an abortion because they know straight out they can’t afford a baby, but they don’t get them because they can’t afford abortion, as it’s extremely expensive. In fact, the only girls at my school who got abortions were the rich ones who could have afforded day care and medical expenses…. Seems like this whole system is messed up to me. Why not instead of pushing abortion, we push getting good health care for the people who need it most so poor girls don’t have to die period?
In California, where I live, the state will make sure any pregnant woman that has no insurance or is unable to pay out of pocket for the medical attention she needs is taken care of. Whether it covers everything or partial every pregnant woman in need of assistance has the same opportunities. This coverage goes beyond birth, up to the first few months of the baby’s life and then there are further services, that are often free especially for children 0-5 years old, referred to as “First Five” that provides for children to visit doctors/dentists.
That does make quite a bit of sense, but of course that’s the problem. I happen to come from Illinois, and there is a reason why I haven’t voted yet.
The dangers of pregnancy can not always be solved by healthcare. I have a very painful joint disorder, along with migraines. If I were to get pregnant, in order to prevent birth defects I would need to go off of all 5 medications I take daily. Without these, I would be in too much pain to function. As is I have days where going down a flight of stairs brings tears to my eyes. Also, my gynecologist warned me that it’s possible I’d have a migraine for the majority of my pregnancy, and I still would need to stay medication-free for the health of the fetus. For some perspective on that, my migraines have repeatedly lasted for several days and landed me in the hospital.
A longer-term issue is that I would never want to subject a child to the ordeal I have to go through. I know my disorder is hereditary, so I don’t plan on ever having children. I think the responsible thing to do is not pass on my genes.
The comments suggesting that if a woman isn’t ready to have children, then she shouldn’t have sex seem to be aimed at teenagers. They assume that at some point everyone will be ready to have children. I’m currently in a committed relationship, and plan on getting married. This won’t change my decision on not having children. By your logic I should spend my entire married life celibate. Birth control methods usually have about a 99% success rate. Over the 15+ years that I’ll be married and fertile, it could fail. Even given all this, there would be a very long, serious discussion between me and my partner about how to proceed, and whatever decision we came to would be a hard one. No one is ‘pushing abortion,’ but as you don’t know all the details of each situation, it shouldn’t be your call (or the government’s) to make.
Plagiarizing from Randal Jones at godlessprolifers [dot] com:
“Pro-choicers say: ‘If you don’t like abortions, then don’t have one.’ I say:
‘If you don’t like slavery, then don’t enslave anyone.’
‘If you don’t like theft, then don’t steal from anyone.’
‘If you don’t like sexually transmitted diseases, then don’t transmit one.’
‘If you don’t like terrorism, then don’t bomb anyone.’
‘If you don’t like animal cruelty, then don’t hurt one.’
‘If you don’t like oppression, then don’t oppress anyone.’
“As you can see, this type of thinking is anarchy at it’s worst. Basically it says: ‘Shut up and let me do what I want; I don’t care how it affects anyone else; I just want to do what I want to do.’ It is very self-centered and childish.”
Plagiarizing from Randal Jones at godlessprolifers [dot] com:
“Pro-choicers say: ‘If you don’t like abortions, then don’t have one.’ I say:
‘If you don’t like slavery, then don’t enslave anyone.’
‘If you don’t like råpe, then don’t råpe anyone.’
‘If you don’t like theft, then don’t steal from anyone.’
‘If you don’t like sexually transmitted diseases, then don’t transmit one.’
‘If you don’t like terrorism, then don’t bomb anyone.’
‘If you don’t like animal cruelty, then don’t hurt one.’
‘If you don’t like oppression, then don’t oppress anyone.’
“As you can see, this type of thinking is anarchy at it’s worst. Basically it says: ‘Shut up and let me do what I want; I don’t care how it affects anyone else; I just want to do what I want to do.’ It is very self-centered and childish.”
What I’m most surprised about is that some people like abortion.
I can’t find the newest post I wrote. (Probably because of that sutra quote. *pulls collar* Ennnngh.)
Anyway, davidstarlingm, what gives a human being worth? You know, not the whole “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” schtick, either, since you’ve been quoting a right that only those born in American or have become American citizens can enjoy. And maybe other countries, too, but certainly not the whole world.
What makes humans worthy of the right to life?
The classical view is that governments are instituted by communities to secure the divinely given inalienable rights given to all human beings. But you don’t have to be religious to accept that it’s in our best interests to protect the rights of all members of our species, treating everyone equally, regardless of how useful they seem to us. It’s the principle of the thing. Equal protection under the law.
Legally speaking, it’s pretty simple. The 14th Amendment isn’t limited to American citizens; no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.
So let me try and get you straight, you care a lot about fetuses…but when it comes to the women who are stuck with them you’re all “Sorry, but I care more about the thing inside you than your own personal choice.” There should be equal right to choose,
Due process: a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual —called also substantive due process
Wouldn’t restricting abortion be unfair and/or unreasonable treatment of an individual? By individual meaning person, and I already defined person for you earlier, so you can’t flip flop and say that abortion is unfair or unreasonable treatment of an individual seeing as they aren’t one.
Fetus:an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth
doesn’t compare to the legal and medical definition of person, now does it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvF1Q3UidWM While some might throw this out since he is a comedian, his point rings true.
So let me try and get you straight, you care a lot about fetuses…but when it comes to the women who are stuck with them you’re all “Sorry, but I care more about the thing inside you than your own personal choice.” There should be equal right to choose,
Due process: a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual —called also substantive due process
Wouldn’t restricting abortion be unfair and/or unreasonable treatment of an individual? By individual meaning person, and I already defined person for you earlier, so you can’t flip flop and say that abortion is unfair or unreasonable treatment of an individual seeing as they aren’t one.
Fetus:an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically : a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth
doesn’t compare to the legal and medical definition of person, now does it?
While some might throw out his point since he is a comedian, George Carlin’s stance on abortion rings true.
I care tremendously about women. I believe contraceptives should be universally available and that women should be able to decide for themselves when they do or do not wish to become pregnant.
But once a woman has become pregnant, there are two people to be concerned about, not just one. It’s that simple.
Regarding your definition: right. A fetus is a developing human. A fetus is not a part of a woman’s body, to be disposed of with impunity.
haven’t I already told you that a fetus is not a person? I don’t get you, you say you care about women but once she’s pregnant the zygote, embryo, or fetus matters more than her choice to not go through with the pains of pregnancy. You just stated that it effects those two *beings, your opinion that the fetus has value and importance is your opinion and you can have that until the day you die. You don’t control what I put or take out of my uterus, end of discussion. If it were possible to implant a(n) zygote, embryo, or fetus into another person’s body then a woman can do as she pleases.
How would you like being strapped with that for 9 months because people say you should? Do you have a girlfriend or a wife? What if she admitted to having an abortion or wanted to abort a pregnancy?
*beings meaning one is a person (the woman) and one is not.
I do have an interest in protecting our species. That’s one reason, if I was able to have children, I wouldn’t have them. I have seriously whacked DNA: allergies to penicillin, eczema, dru g dependency, obesity, heart diseases, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, the list goes on and on. It’s my responsibility to make sure that crappy DNA doesn’t get passed down to the next generation, possibly harming them.
Besides, there are seven BILLION people on this planet. SEVEN BILLION. That’s over double the amount it was fifty years ago. You know what would happen if 330,000 women a year got abortions over the next fifty years? We’d get twenty-one BILLION people. Because people still scre w. A lot. Repeatedly. Every. Single. Minute. Of. The. Day. And keep their babies, too. And, yes, all twenty-one billion of those people all have rights, and in fifty years, the sixty billion humans in universe deserve rights, too, but this isn’t about rights. It’s about worth, something you still haven’t answered. Maybe it’s unclear:
LAWS DO NOT GIVE PEOPLE MEANING. LAWS DO NOT GIVE PEOPLE WORTH. LAWS GIVE PEOPLE RIGHTS. RIGHTS DO NOT EQUAL WORTH NOR MEANING. THE LAWS OF ONE COUNTRY DO NOT APPLY TO ALL COUNTRIES. ONLY THAT COUNTRY’S LAW APPLIES TO THAT COUNTRY. THIS ISN’T PLANET AMERICA, THIS IS PLANET EARTH AND SO AMERICA’S LAWS DO NOT APPLY ELSEWHERE. American laws only apply to Americans; I mean, that’s like saying that China’s or Cuba’s or Korea’s laws apply to the whole world.
You’d think that with your thesaurus-like knowledge of vocabulary, you’d know that rights do not mean worth by now; maybe even some synonyms or homonyms or homophones to go along.
So, what gives people worth? What makes them worthy of life? Will I have to take a plane, sit down with you and help you write out your thoughts on the matter? This question isn’t even about LAWS or ABORTION or FETUSES or CHILDREN: it’s about what YOU think one HUMAN LIFE is worth, what makes someone WORTHY of life.
SERIOUSLY. I COULD JUST STRANGLE YOU FOR DANCING AROUND SUCH A STRAIGHT FORWARD QUESTION! I’m not even trying to change your opinion on pro-choice because I understand that you want to protect children because people beat them, kill them, starve them and abandon them everyday and you just want to give that little fetus all the chances it can get for a good, long life, but this isn’t about them, it’s about you, personally, what you think makes humans worthy of life. What made Hitler worthy of life? What made Gandhi worthy of life? What makes any of us, who were ever born, who were ever conceived, worthy of living? It’s all I’m asking. By now it’s not even gonna make me think less of you because you’re being such a condescending d!ck weed that my respect for you couldn’t even get lower. In fact, maybe instead of being a condescending d!ck weed, you’d answer like a normal human being, I might even GAIN RESPECT for you! The system is shocking, even to me.
So, please, please-please-please, for the love of the Big Bang and God and Vishnu, will you tell me what makes humans worthy of life?
You want to know why human beings have instrinsic worth, without reference to the abortion issue? I’d be glad to answer. I wasn’t aware that this question had been asked.
IMHO, the chief end of mankind is to glorify and enjoy God forever. Because of this, all human beings have equal intrinsic worth and value. Does that answer your question?
That doesn’t answer anything. Come back when you have a real explanation that doesn’t involve an imaginary old man in the sky.
Yeah, his explanation just makes God seem like an egotistical a**hole who created all of life just so it could worship him. Lovely sentiment.
Yes, it does answer it. Thank you very much. I’ve been pretty much asking that question since I first posted to you, but you kept on quoting rights at me when I asked for “what worth it”. I mean, I might be a little snarky at times, but I just want a valid reason behind your beliefs. I mean, I’m an atheist, but I respect your religious beliefs enough to say that’s a valid answer (unless you start on homosexuality or validating racism, like some Christians I know do, then you’re in a world of hurt, buddy!).
I’m also happy that you support contraceptives. I mean, the first stop to not having abortions is to prevent fertilization in the process, right? But, you know, it’s a choice to use contraceptives or even teach about contraceptives. There’s parents where I live that raise hell whenever the school thinks about teaching sex ed; you know CONDOMS, CONDOMS are just gonna make all our daughters into WHO RES and just have them spread eagle EVERYWHERE. It’s kinda funny when a couple of those parents already have two to three grandchildren. Wonder how those could have been prevented, hmm?
I also know that one father made his daughter get an abortion, but he’s still against teaching children birth control. I mean, not be be a gossiper, but, *gaah*, stupid people shouldn’t be ALLOWED to breed! Eugenics starts looking pretty good sometimes, you know? *sighs* What a world.
If I were to ever become pregnant, I would probably have an abortion. Becoming a mother doesn’t figure into my plans at all. Some people are just born to be parents and some people aren’t. And I definately am not. Not at all.
On the other hand though, there’s just something so wrong about adoption. It’s like “okay here it is, take it away forever, goodbye”. Like passing your problem off to the government and just washing your hands clean of the whole thing. Putting yet another child into foster care and not caring whether or not it gets a home or a good life just so long as you don’t have to deal with it ever again.
Really, of all the options out there, I feel like abortion is the best for me. It would be a difficult thing for me to do of course and I hope that I never have to.
And I probably won’t, with all the birth control available, it shouldn’t ever come to that (I know that you can never be absolutely 100% safe, but you can be pretty damn safe) but if it ever did, abortion would be my choice.
My parents made a similar decision when my Dad was going through grad school. They knew they weren’t financially stable enough to support a child or give it a good life, so they decided that if for some reason my mother got pregnant, they would get an abortion. Luckily for them, that never happened, and when they were able to support children, they had my brother and me.
I sometimes think about the whole abortion debate like this: for every mother who is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, there may be multiple children–potential children–that will never be born because she had to take care of the unwanted one. That unlucky child will probably have a worse life than the potential children would have had if that woman had those children when she was older and actually ready to have children. In my parents’ case, it would’ve been one unwanted child born to a zookeeper and a grad school drop out instead of two very much wanted children born to a retired animal trainer and a quantum physicist.
A million kudos to the maker of the image! THANK YOU!
I bet I am smart enough not to get pregnant.
This thread was terrible when it first made the rounds. Still is.