Abortion

[Guest QuidEstCaritas?]

Bit late of a response but here goes: It's a mystery to me why prolifers think "what if your mother had aborted you" scenario is a good argument.

On the other hand, what if Hitler had been aborted?

 

Damn.

 

Nice.

[Neon Genesis]

Your only other options are abstinence....or vasectomy. SUCKS!! Talk about all or nothing!

Or the third option, I'll stick to being gay. ^^;;

[white_raven23]

Your only other options are abstinence....or vasectomy. SUCKS!! Talk about all or nothing!

Or the third option, I'll stick to being gay. ^^;;

 

 

I forgot you were gay! Of course, orientation isn't really "optional"....but yeah, when it comes to not wanting kids, gay people DO have an advantage...of course it's also a severe DIS-advantage if you are gay and DO want kids because society is still stupid as hell. 'The Birdcage' should be required viewing.

[Yrth]

I understand about labels being tools, thanks for explaining. I'll do my best to outline my thoughts coherently.

 

Going with what you said here though, that there are circumstances under which you do consider it justifiable to end another human life, it seems a little odd that you would criticize me for my statement that "a woman outranks a fetus". It is true that I value the life of a born woman over the developing life of a fetus, and that's a judgment right there. How does that differ from the judgment you might make in a split second that your life is more valuable than that of a person mugging you?

 

Consider that pregnancy does damage to a woman's body, and consider also that pregnancy still kills us with some regularity (though this is more of an issue in areas and nations where access to health care is limited). If you have the right to defend yourself against bodily harm or death, do we also not have that same right, whether the threat comes from assault or from pregnancy?

 

Interested in your ideas on that.

 

I admit that I hadn't been thinking of the 9 months of pregnancy as a clear threat to a woman's health -- I actually thought pregnancies improved the health of women, filling them with good steroids and giving that 'pregnant glow.' Not sure what to think now, probably both are true. Legally speaking, I forfeit my right to the justification of self-defense if I created the situation. So at least in our law we recognize that the origin of a situation plays a pivotal role in how its judged. Its rare that a couple has little to do with their pregnant circumstance, wouldn't you agree? In fact, in the normal case the only person who had nothing to do with the situation would be the human developing in the woman. Right?

[godlessgrrl]

I understand about labels being tools, thanks for explaining. I'll do my best to outline my thoughts coherently.

 

Groovy.

 

I admit that I hadn't been thinking of the 9 months of pregnancy as a clear threat to a woman's health -- I actually thought pregnancies improved the health of women, filling them with good steroids and giving that 'pregnant glow.' Not sure what to think now, probably both are true.

 

My understanding is that it's something of a crapshoot. Some women breeze through pregnancy and love it, some are sick as a dog the whole time. Some pregnancies start well and problems develop later. Some pregnancies are deadly from the start (ectopic pregnancies in particular). Modern medicine helps improve the odds that a pregnancy will end in a successful birth with a healthy baby and healthy mother, but it's still no guarantee.

 

Legally speaking, I forfeit my right to the justification of self-defense if I created the situation. So at least in our law we recognize that the origin of a situation plays a pivotal role in how its judged. Its rare that a couple has little to do with their pregnant circumstance, wouldn't you agree? In fact, in the normal case the only person who had nothing to do with the situation would be the human developing in the woman. Right?

 

Okay, I'm listening so far. It sounds as if you're saying that self-defense isn't a justifiable legal argument against abortion since the people involved created the unwanted pregnancy to begin with. Is that a fair understanding of what you're saying?

 

I'll go with the idea that fetuses don't initiate pregnancies, yeah.

[Overcame Faith]

Like the OP, since dumping Christianity, I have been rethinking the opinions I formed about a myriad of issues. Included among the issues I am currently rethinking is the issue of abortion. As a Christian, I was prolife. My thinking was as follows:

 

• Life begins at conception. The bible seems to acknowledge this (see Psalm 139:13)
  
• Human life is precious.
  
• The law plays an important role in protecting innocent human life.
  
• Therefore, it is permissible and good for the law to ban abortions.
  

 

Even as a prolife Christian, I still did not think that any woman should be punished by the law for having an abortion. Rather, I believed that the only ones who should be punished were the abortion providers. What is more, I never thought that any woman who has an abortion should be judged harshly because I felt that it must have been a heart-wrenching decision for her to have made and she should not be judged for having made that decision.

 

Now that I am not a Christian, my thinking is in flux. I must dump the perception I once held that there is some sort of divine guidance which tells us that life begins at conception and think it through rationally. I still have not made up my mind about my final conclusion. However, I have come to certain conclusions:

 

• Human life is precious.
  
• The law plays an important role in protecting innocent human life.
  
• Every mentally competent adult should have control over their own bodies, with minors and incompetent adults having control to the extent they are capable of understanding the ramifications of their actions. To the extent they are not competent to make their own decisions for their welfare, the law has a duty to assume that if a person were capable of making decisions on their own behalf, they would choose that which would promote a good life and take action accordingly to protect such persons.
  
• Since rape is caused by force and the woman never had a say in the act, she has a right to at least an early abortion [maybe late term, as well, but I am still thinking this through] because she should not be forced to live with the consequences for which she had no personal responsibility. To believe otherwise would be the same as telling a person who is badly beaten up they they do not have the right to seek medical help to get their body back in the shape it was in prior to the beating. No, the innocent victim of a crime has the right to get their bodies back in the shape it was in prior to the crime, and this includes a woman who is the victim of rape having an abortion. Since the woman has the right to get her body back in the shape it was in prior to her being the victim of this crime, the abortion provider should be protected from prosecution for assisting her to exercise her right.
  
• No woman should be punished by the law for obtaining an abortion and she should not be judged harshly by individuals should she decide to have an abortion.
  
• Every person has the right to self defense. Therefore, any woman whose life or health is threatened by pregnancy may choose to exercise her right to self-defense by terminating the pregnancy. Clearly, the abortion provider should also be protected by the law in this circumstance in the same way that the law protects from prosecution a person who defends an innocent third party whose life or health is unlawfully threatened by someone (i.e., if someone is unlawfully trying to kill a person then a third party may use force to protect the innocent party whose life is threatened by the perpetrator).
  
• Once a child is outside of the woman's body, the child must be protected by the law to the same extent as any other person. This means that even in the case of a botched abortion in which the child leaves the mother's body alive, the child must be protected, including being provided medical care to sustain life. It also means that no abortion procedure in which the child is removed from the mother's body and then killed should be legal.
  

 

The issues I am not certain about are:

 

• At what point does human life begin so that the law has a duty to protect that human life? At conception? At some point after conception but before birth? Only after birth?
  
• Even if we conclude that at some point during pregnancy the fetus is a human being, does that fact ever trump a woman's right to make choices concerning her own body?
  
• If a fetus does become a human being at some point during pregnancy, does this fact mean that when the fetus has some deformity that does not physically threaten the pregnant woman that abortion is not allowed simply because of the deformity?
  
• What role should the fact that some women who are denied the abortion option by the law will obtain potentially unsafe abortions play in deciding whether abortions should be legal and thus medically safer?
  

 

I know there are other issues as well, but this is my current framework within which to make up my mind. To the extent it helps the OP, I commend my thoughts to you.

[gypsy79]

OP, I also struggle with this. I tend to call myself "pro-life" just so others understand me better, but I don't really fit the definition. In fact, most pro-lifers would probably say I'm pro-choice.

 

I don't really have a problem with early-term abortion, but by that, I don't mean what other folks mean. I don't like the "viability" measure because doctors and scientists disagree on what that means. Some say 24 weeks; others say 22 weeks. Then there is the pain issue. Some say 28 weeks, some say 20, and the majority say somewhere around 24 weeks. Because I'm a cautious gal, I would prefer that we go with less than 20 weeks. I just don't like the idea of aborting a 5 month old fetus who can possibly feel pain when the mother could have handled it earlier and chose not to. Then again, if that's her decision, she is obviously not ready to become a mother and maybe the fetus is better off. Disclaimer: I'm not talking about folks who didn't know they were pregnant until late or whose life/health is at stake; I am just talking about folks who delayed the decision too long.

 

I'm not going to research this right now because I'm tired, but I was researching it yesterday and I believe only 2% of abortions are late term, so maybe we worry too much about this issue. Of course, late term means something different to everyone, as I have demonstrated above.

 

Regardless, I understand the arguments of people who are pro-choice all the way. I go out of my way to understand both their arguments and the arguments of people who are relentlessly pro-life. I think if we all tried to get where the other side (or both sides, if you're in the middle like me) are coming from, we would come to consensus a lot faster in the U.S. Or at least we might eventually agree to disagree and leave the law where it is. The rhetoric without attempt to understand (from both sides of the issue) is not getting us anywhere.

 

Kudos to the folks on this thread for keeping it even-tempered and understanding.

[Yaoi Huntress Earth]

I think pre-sell-out Dennis Miller said it best, "When it comes to abortion, just look in your heart and you'll find your answer." I don't like it, but I believe it's the person's choice in the matter and that proper sex education, access to birth control and honest talk about sexuality (none of this virgin vs whore crap) will help reduce it.

[RankStranger]

I gotta say... this is the longest I've ever seen ANY abortion thread go without turning nasty. On any site.

 

I think the crux of the matter is the question of when a separate and 'viable' life begins. I think the most logically consistent (or at least the most easily defensible) position to take is to ban all abortion after conception... period. There's a nice, clear line... an easy answer. No need to think too hard about it. And that's the position I took up until maybe 10 years ago- when I started becoming more ambivalent on the matter.

 

Even after than nice, convenient bright line of conception, there's no reasonable argument that can justify prohibiting a woman from having an unconscious clump of cells removed from her own body. And of course this raises the question of just how far along a fetus has to be before it's given legal protection. Nobody seems to be able to agree on just when this point should be, and there are OBVIOUS problems with any point that you might pick.

 

So seeings how the issue is murky at best- wouldn't the decision be best left to the individual who is MOST directly affected by it? I tend to think that current law is about the best compromise that we're going to come up with (some legal protection of the fetus beginning with the third trimester). But generally speaking, I think women should be trusted to make the decision. Sure, there will be abuses and stupid decisions- it's an unfortunate side-effect of freedom. No different than just about any other 'freedom' you might name.

[godlessgrrl]

But generally speaking, I think women should be trusted to make the decision.

 

This reminds me of another point I've heard elsewhere and considered.

 

Restricting things like birth control and abortion from women carries an implication that women are incapable of acting as independent moral agents. The religious arguments in particular often carry a condescending air about them, especially when they involve slut-shaming. An unspoken belief seems to be that women who have abortions are irresponsible sluts with less moral sense than an alley cat in heat, therefore we shouldn't be allowed to have the responsibility to make our own sexual and reproductive decisions because we aren't capable of it. My NBTX held this belief, and I must wonder how many other anti-abortion religious men believe it too.

 

I must also admit that one of my reasons for supporting abortion (and other family planning tools for both women and men) is a firm belief that women are not the property of men, as Bible-thumpers would wish us to be. It isn't so long ago that under the law in America, we were considered chattel, without the right to control our own property, to plan our families, to have custody of our own children, to testify in court, to serve on juries, to serve in public office... hell, we didn't even get the federal right to vote until 1920. Abortion is one small weapon in a much larger arsenal of female independence, one more tool that allows us to be rulers over our own lives instead of living in subjection to another. Abortion means that if we're pregnant and we don't want to be, we don't have to be.

 

Some more food for thought, anyway.

[Guest QuidEstCaritas?]

But generally speaking, I think women should be trusted to make the decision.

 

This reminds me of another point I've heard elsewhere and considered.

 

Restricting things like birth control and abortion from women carries an implication that women are incapable of acting as independent moral agents. The religious arguments in particular often carry a condescending air about them, especially when they involve slut-shaming. An unspoken belief seems to be that women who have abortions are irresponsible sluts with less moral sense than an alley cat in heat, therefore we shouldn't be allowed to have the responsibility to make our own sexual and reproductive decisions because we aren't capable of it. My NBTX held this belief, and I must wonder how many other anti-abortion religious men believe it too.

 

I must also admit that one of my reasons for supporting abortion (and other family planning tools for both women and men) is a firm belief that women are not the property of men, as Bible-thumpers would wish us to be. It isn't so long ago that under the law in America, we were considered chattel, without the right to control our own property, to plan our families, to have custody of our own children, to testify in court, to serve on juries, to serve in public office... hell, we didn't even get the federal right to vote until 1920. Abortion is one small weapon in a much larger arsenal of female independence, one more tool that allows us to be rulers over our own lives instead of living in subjection to another. Abortion means that if we're pregnant and we don't want to be, we don't have to be.

 

Some more food for thought, anyway.

 

 

Well said. I never could put it the way you did but I really agree with you.

[Guest]

Pro-choice, with reluctance. I don't think I could do it myself, but its not up to me to sit in judgment upon the circumstances that compel others to get an abortion. If not done in a clinic it will be done elsewhere under dangerous conditions.

 

I recently did some genealogical research and traced my family back to the 16th century. When you look at it on paper, its quite impressive the number of people who had to come together to produce this body. It was hundreds. If I were able to trace it further back, no doubt it would be thousands. It gave me a different perspective. Life is such an amazing process and continuity.

 

I have a math question...

 

When still a xtian, I had read something along the lines that since we all have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc, that if you go back just a few hundred years, there are hundreds of thousands of people who contributed to your existence.

 

Now, on paper, that sounds logical. But what I can not get past is that there were not that many people alive in the past. Aren't there more people alive today (6.7 billion) than have ever been alive in recorded human history? So how can you go back in time and have so many people contributing to you? I mean, some 1,000 years ago there were only about 1 billion people on the planet, if that, yet if I were to "do the math" going back 1,000 years, more people would have contributed to me than were alive at that time in history. It doesn't seem to add up to me...

[Guest]

Population

Someone above posted that they're OK with not existing because the planet has too many people anyway. Oh, right? Ok then, go cut your throat this moment for the benefit of 'the planet.' We're all waiting. *taps foot* Go on! No? Not going to do it? Maybe you read that the planet can feed 65 billion people? Or maybe your life is actually worth more to you than you would have us believe? Perhaps both. I hope you'll forgive me for my forceful way of making this point.

A Point? More like another strawman.

 

First, could you post a link where you got the information that earth can feed 65 billion people? I did a quick google search and found nothing. Thank you. We barely have enough land to live and grow food now, where would we find enough farm land with 10 times the amount of people? What about all the human waste that would produce?

 

Second, like I said in the post, someone who is already here (me) has more rights than someone who is not yet here (fetus). Is there any reason why a clump of cells without a nervous system should be given such consideration over someone who is human, alive, and has needs on a planet with finite resources?

 

And now to answer your comment. You see, I have a program in my brain that is wired for my survival. It can go wrong with severely depressed people, but I am not to that point (yet). It is the same program that prevents a horse from running off a cliff or a dog from sticking it's nose into fire; it's called the self preservation instinct. But if I could go back in time and make it so I would not have been born, believe me I would do it. I consider life an amazing thing, but human society has ruined it all by making us slaves (this is a thread in itself! ). Non-existence does not scare me in the least, so your "suggestion' does nothing but make me chuckle to myself. So your answer is yes. If I could go back and have my mother abort me, or at least not have sex the night I was conceived, I would do it. If I had it in me to kill myself, I would have been dead long before I ever found these boards...

 

But this is not about me. I am here already. We are talking about abortion and whether a clump of cells that are not currently human have the same rights as a human that has been alive for several decades.

 

And I wholeheartedly agree that we should be paying more attention to the children who are already here, hungry, and suffering. They are legion, and they are real children, and they are really suffering.

[Deva]

Pro-choice, with reluctance. I don't think I could do it myself, but its not up to me to sit in judgment upon the circumstances that compel others to get an abortion. If not done in a clinic it will be done elsewhere under dangerous conditions.

 

I recently did some genealogical research and traced my family back to the 16th century. When you look at it on paper, its quite impressive the number of people who had to come together to produce this body. It was hundreds. If I were able to trace it further back, no doubt it would be thousands. It gave me a different perspective. Life is such an amazing process and continuity.

 

Now, on paper, that sounds logical. But what I can not get past is that there were not that many people alive in the past. Aren't there more people alive today (6.7 billion) than have ever been alive in recorded human history? So how can you go back in time and have so many people contributing to you? I mean, some 1,000 years ago there were only about 1 billion people on the planet, if that, yet if I were to "do the math" going back 1,000 years, more people would have contributed to me than were alive at that time in history. It doesn't seem to add up to me...

 

But you are not counting people who were alive at the same time. Its a total through the centuries. Back to the 16th century I had approx. 300 direct ancestors I could find that lived during that whole time span-- 15th through 20th century (I am missing a few). As far as the 16th century itself, there were not all that many actually alive then. Maybe 1,000. I think if you went back 1,000 years, you would find yourself the decedent of probably four thousand people who were alive at that time. There were still plenty around. Someone who is better at math could figure it out more precisely than I can.

 

How many northern Europeans were there 100,000 years ago? I don't really know, but however many there were, they probably all would all be my ancestors.

 

As you go back far enough, of course it wouldn't be "people" in the sense of modern humans anymore.

[Ouroboros]

When still a xtian, I had read something along the lines that since we all have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc, that if you go back just a few hundred years, there are hundreds of thousands of people who contributed to your existence.

...

That's a very interesting question. I think I know the answer intuitively, but I'm not sure I can explain it very well. Perhaps it should be moved to another, separate thread for discussion?

[Yrth]

Population

Someone above posted that they're OK with not existing because the planet has too many people anyway. Oh, right? Ok then, go cut your throat this moment for the benefit of 'the planet.' We're all waiting. *taps foot* Go on! No? Not going to do it? Maybe you read that the planet can feed 65 billion people? Or maybe your life is actually worth more to you than you would have us believe? Perhaps both. I hope you'll forgive me for my forceful way of making this point.

A Point? More like another strawman.

 

First, could you post a link where you got the information that earth can feed 65 billion people? I did a quick google search and found nothing. Thank you.

Sure :] Here you go, the result of my own quick Google search. As I understand it, the problem (today) isn't growing food so much as distributing it.

 

Second, like I said in the post, someone who is already here (me) has more rights than someone who is not yet here (fetus). Is there any reason why a clump of cells without a nervous system should be given such consideration over someone who is human, alive, and has needs on a planet with finite resources?

The reason is that you're both alive, you're both human, you both require resources, and you're both here. There are better ways of reducing the population without throwing out human beings.

 

But if I could go back in time and make it so I would not have been born, believe me I would do it. I consider life an amazing thing, but human society has ruined it all by making us slaves (this is a thread in itself! ). Non-existence does not scare me in the least, so your "suggestion' does nothing but make me chuckle to myself. So your answer is yes. If I could go back and have my mother abort me, or at least not have sex the night I was conceived, I would do it. If I had it in me to kill myself, I would have been dead long before I ever found these boards...

Well, if that's true, then I am sorry for the prior sarcasm. I'm not a counselor, and I don't know what to say to you to convince you to prize your life, but what about the lives of others? Would you be comfortable having their mothers abort them? At this point I'm just curious, I'm not trying to make an argument.

 

But this is not about me. I am here already. We are talking about abortion and whether a clump of cells that are not currently human have the same rights as a human that has been alive for several decades.

Well, I'm afraid you're simply wrong about the clump of cells not being human. What else is it but human? Rabbit? Frog? Martian?

 

And I wholeheartedly agree that we should be paying more attention to the children who are already here, hungry, and suffering. They are legion, and they are real children, and they are really suffering.

How does that sentiment square with human society having ruined everything?

[Neon Genesis]

Restricting things like birth control and abortion from women carries an implication that women are incapable of acting as independent moral agents. The religious arguments in particular often carry a condescending air about them, especially when they involve slut-shaming. An unspoken belief seems to be that women who have abortions are irresponsible sluts with less moral sense than an alley cat in heat, therefore we shouldn't be allowed to have the responsibility to make our own sexual and reproductive decisions because we aren't capable of it. My NBTX held this belief, and I must wonder how many other anti-abortion religious men believe it too.

I just don't understand this position. If someone believes abortion is murder, shouldn't they be supportive of birth control and comprehensive sex ed to prevent the pregnancy from happening in the first place? Even if they believe premarital sex is a sin, why is it wrong to be educated for when you do decide to have sex? And if xtians think God is even remotely pro life, they haven't read Psalms 137 or the majority of the OT.

 

I gotta say... this is the longest I've ever seen ANY abortion thread go without turning nasty. On any site.

It's also amazing to me that religion has not been used as a justification for one's political beliefs in this thread once. ^^;;

[Skeptic]

I just don't understand this position. If someone believes abortion is murder, shouldn't they be supportive of birth control and comprehensive sex ed to prevent the pregnancy from happening in the first place? Even if they believe premarital sex is a sin, why is it wrong to be educated for when you do decide to have sex?

 

I think the "reasoning" goes that no one should have sex before marriage, and even then you shouldn't really have sex unless you're willing to get pregnant, because contraception doesn't actually work. Yes, this is what I was actually taught, and in a public school, no less. The people who support this position don't want people, especially teenagers, actually learning about sex because if they learn about sex, then they're going to do it, right? Of course, teenagers are going to have sex whether they get a proper sex education or not because that's just human nature, but human sexuality is a sin, according to these people, and if fundies can suppress it (which we've seen time and again isn't foolproof), then everyone should have to. It's hard to make sense of it even when you've been brainwashed to believe it. It's really something that you have to be scared into believing and you have to take the information on blind faith (no surprise there).

[Yrth]

But generally speaking, I think women should be trusted to make the decision.

 

This reminds me of another point I've heard elsewhere and considered.

 

Restricting things like birth control and abortion from women carries an implication that women are incapable of acting as independent moral agents. The religious arguments in particular often carry a condescending air about them, especially when they involve slut-shaming. An unspoken belief seems to be that women who have abortions are irresponsible sluts with less moral sense than an alley cat in heat, therefore we shouldn't be allowed to have the responsibility to make our own sexual and reproductive decisions because we aren't capable of it. My NBTX held this belief, and I must wonder how many other anti-abortion religious men believe it too.

 

I must also admit that one of my reasons for supporting abortion (and other family planning tools for both women and men) is a firm belief that women are not the property of men, as Bible-thumpers would wish us to be. It isn't so long ago that under the law in America, we were considered chattel, without the right to control our own property, to plan our families, to have custody of our own children, to testify in court, to serve on juries, to serve in public office... hell, we didn't even get the federal right to vote until 1920. Abortion is one small weapon in a much larger arsenal of female independence, one more tool that allows us to be rulers over our own lives instead of living in subjection to another. Abortion means that if we're pregnant and we don't want to be, we don't have to be.

 

Some more food for thought, anyway.

 

The connection between abortion and feminism is something that has confused and saddened me for a long time. I feel that first of all its a false connection, and that second its obstructing the progression of reform. Abortion becomes much easier to defend when you cast the entire category as a civil rights issue for women. And its a false connection because female independence and abortion rights overlap a little but not at all completely. After all, as Neon has pointed out, there is the man involved to consider as well as the (small) human being aborted. Aside from the fact that abortion adds to female independence what it steals from the unborn and men(More so from the unborn, but I have known some traumatized guys involved in these situations), it subtracts rather than adds to the position of women, and really the the position of us all. This whole 60s-70s notion of men and women as the same is nonsense, we're equal (as humans. see, it comes in everywhere) but hardly the same, obviously, and as childbirth is reduced so does the state of women in society. Instead of acknowledging and prizing our differences, we're castigating them as handicaps and thereby handicapping ourselves. Women may now choose whether or not to carry to term, but if you think they don't face intense pressure from men (avoiding child support) or their families to get an abortion then you're sadly mistaken. Abortion is the best thing that has ever happened for reckless men, not women, who in fact do like to get laid every weekend with a new partner. How does encouragement of that sort of behavior add to the position of women in our country?

 

Ah gtg, will post later.

[Vixentrox]

Although I am generally pro-choice, the biggest hangups for me are 1# Late term abortion, #2 Defining when an embryo becomes a baby. I just dont see except in a medical emergency how it's justified to kill an 8 month along baby. The mom had plenty of time to terminate way before then. That goes hand in hand with #2 becuase if you WANT the child and it's only considered a clump of cells and someone causes the pregnacy to end, that has to be more serious than just assualt on the mother. If I carried a baby for 8 months and someone kicked my stomach and caused loss of the baby, there has to be some reprucssions beyond just common assualt or what not.

[SilentLoner]

This whole 60s-70s notion of men and women as the same is nonsense, we're equal (as humans. see, it comes in everywhere) but hardly the same, obviously, and as childbirth is reduced so does the state of women in society. Instead of acknowledging and prizing our differences, we're castigating them as handicaps and thereby handicapping ourselves. Women may now choose whether or not to carry to term, but if you think they don't face intense pressure from men (avoiding child support) or their families to get an abortion then you're sadly mistaken. Abortion is the best thing that has ever happened for reckless men, not women, who in fact do like to get laid every weekend with a new partner. How does encouragement of that sort of behavior add to the position of women in our country?

 

Ah gtg, will post later.

 

Nice generalization. I don't doubt that happenes but if you think thats every case you're saldly mistaken. You're also sadly mistaken if you think just having kids eliminates "that sort of behavior."

 

Women have had abortions LONG before the legalization in modern times (earliest record 4000 years ago).

[SilentLoner]

Just thought I'd post this site. Its a good collection of stories from women who have had abortions and the reasons behind them (plus a nice break for the endless prolife sites littering the net).

 

http://www.imnotsorry.net/

[godlessgrrl]

I just don't understand this position. If someone believes abortion is murder, shouldn't they be supportive of birth control and comprehensive sex ed to prevent the pregnancy from happening in the first place? Even if they believe premarital sex is a sin, why is it wrong to be educated for when you do decide to have sex? And if xtians think God is even remotely pro life, they haven't read Psalms 137 or the majority of the OT.

 

Hey, I ain't saying the position makes sense, I'm just sayin' it's out there and people have it. I'd think that anybody who was against abortion would be pro-BC too, but that isn't the case. And yeah, I agree with you on xians being mistaken that their deity is pro-life - he's not, he's a genocidal bastard.

 

I think that the belief is part of a larger moral stance against nonmarital sexual activity in general, especially for women. If sex is only considered morally acceptable between a married heterosexual couple, then that rules out adultery, homosexuality, premarital sex... things like birth control and abortion are regarded as tools people use to avoid the consequences of sexual sin (i.e., disease and unwanted pregnancy), and are thus not encouraged. I had a pro-life, anti-sex male fundie chew me and other women out on a forum elsenet for advocating birth control; he thought it encouraged women to be godless whores and should be banned. He also wanted abortion banned so that women could be suitably punished by unwanted pregnancies if we dared to have sex with anybody but our godly lawful husband.

 

I suspect the control over women and over female sexuality that is found in the Bible and in other cultures (including our own, given its own puritanical cultural underpinnings and fundie Protestant overtones) is about having control over our reproductive capabilities - our wombs, most directly. In a time and place where having as many sons as possible brings you social status and paternity testing and safe, reliable birth control don't exist, the only way to keep the population up and to make sure a given woman has only your children is to control the wombs. Hence restrictions on female sexuality.

 

Or something like that, anyway.

 

The connection between abortion and feminism is something that has confused and saddened me for a long time. I feel that first of all its a false connection, and that second its obstructing the progression of reform. Abortion becomes much easier to defend when you cast the entire category as a civil rights issue for women. And its a false connection because female independence and abortion rights overlap a little but not at all completely.

 

The way this feminist sees it, abortion is connected to feminism because family planning is connected to feminism, and abortion is one family planning tool among many. It is the equation of family planning=abortion which is false - an equation I encounter with regularity, unfortunately, but there it is.

 

Incidentally, 19th century feminists tended to oppose abortion; Susan B. Anthony springs to mind here. She didn't write much about abortion, but in what little she did write she opposed it for being an unsafe medical procedure that killed women (as it frequently did at the time). She held male-dominated society responsible for creating the circumstances which drove women to abortion, and believed that full equality would eventually eradicate the need for it. See a bit of info here.

 

Not every feminist is pro-choice, either. Ever heard of Feminists for Life?

 

After all, as Neon has pointed out, there is the man involved to consider as well as the (small) human being aborted. Aside from the fact that abortion adds to female independence what it steals from the unborn and men(More so from the unborn, but I have known some traumatized guys involved in these situations), it subtracts rather than adds to the position of women, and really the the position of us all.

 

How does abortion subtract to anyone's "position"?

 

What do you mean by "position"?

 

This whole 60s-70s notion of men and women as the same is nonsense, we're equal (as humans. see, it comes in everywhere) but hardly the same, obviously, and as childbirth is reduced so does the state of women in society. Instead of acknowledging and prizing our differences, we're castigating them as handicaps and thereby handicapping ourselves.

 

I've been reading up on a lot of feminist literature lately; as I've been reading I've also been trying to figure out where this "feminism tries to make men and women equal by making men and women the same", and so far I'm not having much luck, at least not with original feminist writings. Where I am seeing it show up is in media reporting and advertising over the years. The divide between what I'm reading from the mouths of feminist writers vs. the cultural image portrayed of feminists leads me to believe there's been some serious spin goin' on.

 

Guess I'll just have to keep reading.

 

Women may now choose whether or not to carry to term, but if you think they don't face intense pressure from men (avoiding child support) or their families to get an abortion then you're sadly mistaken.

 

Sure, that does happen. Are you implying that women have abortions largely because men want us to?

 

Abortion is the best thing that has ever happened for reckless men, not women, who in fact do like to get laid every weekend with a new partner. How does encouragement of that sort of behavior add to the position of women in our country?

 

How does male promiscuity lower the position of women?

 

How would compulsory pregnancy raise it?

[Yrth]

This whole 60s-70s notion of men and women as the same is nonsense, we're equal (as humans. see, it comes in everywhere) but hardly the same, obviously, and as childbirth is reduced so does the state of women in society. Instead of acknowledging and prizing our differences, we're castigating them as handicaps and thereby handicapping ourselves. Women may now choose whether or not to carry to term, but if you think they don't face intense pressure from men (avoiding child support) or their families to get an abortion then you're sadly mistaken. Abortion is the best thing that has ever happened for reckless men, not women, who in fact do like to get laid every weekend with a new partner. How does encouragement of that sort of behavior add to the position of women in our country?

 

Ah gtg, will post later.

 

Nice generalization. I don't doubt that happenes but if you think thats every case you're saldly mistaken.

I don't think thats every case, so I guess neither of us are mistaken.

 

You're also sadly mistaken if you think just having kids eliminates "that sort of behavior."

I think that people would be less likely to have reckless sex if the risks were higher. As it is now, guys can just pay for an abortion and not think twice about it, at least not after getting tested.

 

Another thing. Just consider for a moment the cognitive disconnect between a couple thrilled to be pregnant and the couple who immediately call the clinic. There isn't anything physically different between the couples, yet one is planning cribs and mobiles and the other is working overtime to pay for the procedure. Isn't that crazy? Shouldn't it be one or the other? It is so much simpler to use effective birth control, then we wouldn't have these mental nightmares.

 

Women have had abortions LONG before the legalization in modern times (earliest record 4000 years ago).

And the Spartans killed off babies they considered weak, should we draw from their example too? I don't care about what women were doing 4000 years ago any more than I care about what Noah, Isaiah, or Jesus were up to. 'Tradition' is no kind of argument, at least not to me.

[godlessgrrl]

I think that people would be less likely to have reckless sex if the risks were higher. As it is now, guys can just pay for an abortion and not think twice about it, at least not after getting tested.

 

Problem here is that with "reckless sex", the risks are always higher for the woman, not the man. Both men and women can catch STI's, but there's still that unfortunate thing about how men can't get pregnant. Eliminating abortion doesn't make sexually reckless men more responsible about their promiscuity, it just makes women end up bearing the bulk of any risk involved.

 

Btw, by "reckless" here I'm assuming you mean something along the lines of "generally promiscuous, inconsiderate, self-servingly so; the kind of person who goes around fucking as much as possible without so much as a by-your-leave; contraception optional, abortion awesome" - or something very much like that. If I'm not even in the same ballpark here please let me know; as I said I'm kind of a word nazi in the interest of understanding a discussion partner.

 

Another thing. Just consider for a moment the cognitive disconnect between a couple thrilled to be pregnant and the couple who immediately call the clinic. There isn't anything physically different between the couples, yet one is planning cribs and mobiles and the other is working overtime to pay for the procedure. Isn't that crazy? Shouldn't it be one or the other? It is so much simpler to use effective birth control, then we wouldn't have these mental nightmares.

 

Amazing, isn't it, how different couples react differently to the same situation. Why would that be "crazy", though? Why should it be one or the other? Some folks are ready and willing and totally enthused about having a baby, some folks find the idea disastrous. Given human variety and individuality I don't find that surprising at all.

 

I do agree with you that it's simpler to use effective contraception and accurate sex ed, which is why I'm a huge fan of both. An ounce of prevention is worth a whole ton of cure. What happens, though, when contraception fails?

 

Here's another thought: you seemed to imply in a previous post that abortion lowers the position of women by encouraging male promiscuity. If this is true, why would birth control not do the same thing?