Abortion and why it's wrong

a reply to: Seamrog

Check again. No, you did not.

I even repeated them for your ease of reading/comprehension.

a reply to: Achilles92x

Those are exceptions to the rule. Not all abortions are done for that kind of reason.

Personally, I'm pro-choice, but anti-abortion.

What scares me is peoples' attitude toward personal responsibility. The vast majority of abortions are not done because of rape, or to save the mother's life, or to prevent horrendous suffering of an infant and tremendous expenses if it is born. The majority are done because the baby is unwanted.
But what of personal responsibility? You made the choice, whether woman or man involved, to have sex. Women argue they shouldn't have to carry something around for 9 months that they don't want? These women are going to have a healthy baby, yet wish to abort it because they don't want it?

Yet they made the CHOICE to have sex. Seriously, to me, that is a disgusting trait in a human being. People who cannot take personal responsibility for their actions are the worst.

You are right. I also, am pro-choice but anti-abortion. Never thought to put it that way, but I am. It is true what you say, most abortions are not done out of medical necessity. Which is singularly ridiculous because with the available methods of birth control out there, the abortion rate should be next to nothing right now, being used for what it is actually needed for...those emergent situations that require medical intervention.

Now, to blur the line a bit: Sometimes, women get pregnant despite faithfully using reliable methods of birth control...I know, because I was one of them and it is dangerous for me to be pregnant. My daughter is only alive because of a miracle, as am I. No way did I want to risk that again. I had an IUD and used condoms as a backup redundancy, and I got pregnant anyway. This is a lot more common than you might think, too.

Should women like that be able to terminate a pregnancy that is a direct threat to her life and the well-being of her existing children? Yes, absolutely. She was being responsible. She wasn't just out there throwing it out to every guy she saw, willy nilly. In my case, I would have been surgically sterilized but I was 23 years old and no doctor would agree to do it, because I only had one child and was so young. It didn't matter what I wanted. My feelings were not respected. Insurance refused to pay for it. So I did what I could to protect myself, and it wasn't enough.

I worked for a clinic, actually, years ago and the doc was a very compassionate, caring man. He left his home town three days a week and drove to ours to open this little clinic for women to have a place to go if they were in need. Not all of the women who walked through that door left with an empty uterus. He did not perform abortions in lieu of birth control. He would not perform multiple abortions on the same person, and if a patient came for their follow-up visit and had not been taking her birth control pills, he would send her away and wish her good luck elsewhere.

What was astounding to me were the reasons that women would give for not using their birth control. A few of the more stunningly outrageous of them:

"Birth control pills will make me fat."

"Birth control pills can give you blood clots." (and pelvic surgical procedures can't??????)

"Birth control pills dry your skin out and make you look old."

"Birth control pills lower your sex drive." (ummmmm....hate to be Captain Obvious here but....)

My personal favorite:

"Birth control pills make your boobs really big and my boyfriend said he would break up with me if my boobs ever got really big." (because......pregnancy would never cause that right??? Just the prevention for it. Seems legit...) By the way, that one had just reached the ripe old age of 15. There is a deeper underlying problem here.

I think the thing about choice is, people don't realize how many bases that actually covers. Some people want to say it's acceptable to abort a pregnancy in the case of rape or endangerment of the woman's life, but it's not acceptable to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Well, by definition any aborted pregnancy is an unwanted one, isn't it? They have to use more specific language than that. And stop using the word "choice". Replace it with "options". And make certain options, such as late-term abortion for any reason, unavailable.

Bottom line: you cannot tell a human being that they have the right to choose what to do with their own body and then turn right around and tell them what choices they are required to make...it is not a choice at that point. Be honest about it.

Ultimately, I feel I have no right to judge others for the choices that they make. The fact remains, no matter how much people try to avoid it, that until we have experienced something for ourselves we have absolutely no right to tell other people how they are supposed to feel about it when it is happening to them. I have made choices in my life that I would have sworn I'd never make, but that was before I was placed in a position of having to make them. People who have never had to make the decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy have no right sitting in judgement of those who have. Period. They don't have to like it, or even agree with it.

I do not think women should have the right to terminate a pregnancy just because they drank too much and accidentally had sex with a stranger. That is what birth control is for, and common sense. But if a woman who uses her BC properly and regularly happens to have a moment of utter stupidity and lack of common sense, becomes pregnant and that pregnancy threatens her life? That changes things for me. Sure, she's just as irresponsible and stupid as Exhibit A, but should she be sentenced to death for it? Should she pay for one stupid mistake with her life? This is not a "black and white" issue. The gray area here is fathoms deep.

I do not think that multiple abortions for the same person should be legal. I do not think that parents of kids under the age of 18 should be able to bring their teenage daughter in to have an abortion because they were not doing their job as a parent and allowed something like that to even happen in the first place. I do not think that late-term abortion should be used in any circumstance. There are a lot of things I disagree with, but ultimately if it is a woman's right to choose, from unlimited options, nothing can be done about it.

Personally, I think the law needs to be amended. Not abolished, but updated. Give options to people. Set boundaries, so that there are consequences for those who choose to be deliberately irresponsible...like any other law out there. This can be done without infringing on a woman's right to choose, and it has nothing to do with religion or any of that either...there is no Universal religion that trumps every other one, no matter what the zealots say. Give them a nice refreshing glass of Shut The Hell Up, a round for everybody.

Abortion is not on the rise. Awareness has been raised, and abortion rates have dropped, significantly. With a little more concerted effort, we can move past this...but the key is going to be putting aside differences and coming to a solution. I'm just not sure it's possible anymore.

a reply to: tigertatzen

Odd I never thought I would see the day when a man threatens to leave someone if theor boobs got big.
Was he under the weather?.

originally posted by: TechUnique

In the USA, where nearly half of pregnancies are unintended and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion , there are over 3,000 abortions per day. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies in the USA (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.

Peace

OK...Why are we excluding miscarriages? Known to doctors as "Spontaneous Abortion"...Which is when nature (God) thinks abortion is acceptable...for the slightest of reasons.

As the song goes...What if God was one of us?

Let's examine the parameters of abortion's by God aka "Spontaneous Abortions" and see what we can learn..

10 to 20% of KNOWN pregnancies end in Spontaneous abortion.

It is estimated that a much larger percent of pregnancies are spontaneously aborted before women even know they are pregnant...Heavy periods in the first 8 weeks. Some medical researchers put the miscarriage rate in the first month at 75% of all pregnancies. Again, miscarriage early on is virtually indistinguishable from a heavy period.

If a pregnancy is intact and healthy at 12 weeks...the rate of miscarriage (Spontaneous abortion) dramatically drops to less than 3% to 5%.

At some point nature stops treating the fetus as expendable in favor of the mothers health, but until that point nature is quick to spontaneously abort.

Either way, I am not comfortable being so arrogant as to claim to fully understand nature/god and legislate that arrogance in favor of taking that choice away from half the population.

Clearly you have too much time on your hands. And why not use all this love in your heart for a good cause? I don't know where you live, but here's the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange (TARE) list of kids in need of adoption. I stopped counting at 100 and there appears to be at least 3 times that in need of good homes. Many of them are special needs, so I hope you're good at changing the diaper of a bedridden, nonverbal 10 year old! And for the rest of their natural life- won't God be proud of YOU!
TARE Adoption List

If you don't live in Texas, I'm sure your state has a similar program. Put your money where your mouth is and save a real, post-birth child! Or two, or three. There's even a link where you can adopt unaccompanied minor refugees. South Americans are people too, ya know!



PS I'm not even going to bother going into all the logical reasons why safe abortions should be legal. Or all the plethora of reasons women (and the men who impregnated them) have for needing said safe, legal abortions....because frankly you're so set in your opinion that you wouldn't pay attention anyway. So, I figured we should just start on your admitted stance of caring about all these babies.

a reply to: Skada

I am a Christian man and my stance on abortion is really unknown to me.
Yes I think it's horrible, but what is the solution? It pains me horribly to say but if all of those pregnancies were carried to term it would be a detriment to society as a whole.

Don't like abortion? Don't get one.

Can someone tell me why, in every single pro-life thread, the first and most common response is rape/incest pregnancies? Do you people realize how statistically minute that is? It's a fall back straw man argument for those who don't want to address the real issues. Secondly, in my conservative circle of friends/contacts I don't know a single person who thinks there should be no exceptions. Specifically for medical safety or rape/incest cases.

originally posted by: ladyvalkyrie
Clearly you have too much time on your hands. And why not use all this love in your heart for a good cause? I don't know where you live, but here's the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange (TARE) list of kids in need of adoption. I stopped counting at 100 and there appears to be at least 3 times that in need of good homes. Many of them are special needs, so I hope you're good at changing the diaper of a bedridden, nonverbal 10 year old! And for the rest of their natural life- won't God be proud of YOU!
TARE Adoption List

If you don't live in Texas, I'm sure your state has a similar program. Put your money where your mouth is and save a real, post-birth child! Or two, or three. There's even a link where you can adopt unaccompanied minor refugees. South Americans are people too, ya know!



PS I'm not even going to bother going into all the logical reasons why safe abortions should be legal. Or all the plethora of reasons women (and the men who impregnated them) have for needing said safe, legal abortions....because frankly you're so set in your opinion that you wouldn't pay attention anyway. So, I figured we should just start on your admitted stance of caring about all these babies.

Like many in this thread, your post is dripping with hate.

a reply to: Seamrog

Again pot kettle black.

a reply to: Seamrog

Dripping with hate? I'm dead serious. Kudos to you and your 2 adoptions BTW, at least you have a bit more of a solid moral ground to stand on than most of the MEN on this thread. And you are entitled to your opinion on the subject, but you have no right to force your beliefs on another.

I am the proud mother of 2 beautiful children. 2 healthy, normal pregnancies. I have suffered morning sickness, fluid retention, swelling of the feet and ankles, sciatica, immense discomfort, weight gain. I'm left with carpal tunnel which will never go away and a hernia that is going to require surgery to fix. I ended up with 2 emergency c-sections, after about 13 hours of painful unsuccessful labor both times. You can't smoke or drink and you have to take nasty horse pill prenatal vitamins every day. You have to stop taking necessary medications if birth defects are a possible side effect. IF you intend to do it right and give the fetus the best possible chance. So for all the men of the opinion "A woman with an unwanted pregnancy doesn't have to keep it, just go ahead and have it and give it up for adoption!"....just know that is a ridiculously oversimplified view. -not to mention the social factors such as being fired or unable to find a job due to being pregnant, which happens all the time.

Of the female friends who chose to have abortions: one was addicted to drugs at the time and years later got her sh*t together and is now a wonderful mother, one was raped, one was in love with the (I use the term loosely) father and intended to marry him but as soon as she revealed her condition he revealed his true nature threatening everything from taking the baby away from her to stalking her- imagine dealing with THAT for 18 years. Another friend made the decision WITH her boyfriend and he accompanied her- through the throngs of self righteous protestors- to have the safe, legal procedure.

Meanwhile my other friend kept her 2 oops babies (one of which the male in question had a vasectomy) they are now 11 and 7 and she has yet to see a dime of child support.

So once again, let's find homes for all these precious children who are post-birth, here in the world, full fledged human beings. Let's eradicate child abuse, hunger and sex abuse. Let's end all cases of incest and rape. Let's collect all the unpaid child support. Let's provide sex education, readily available counseling and birth control ASAP to the young people of our society. THEN we can start worrying about clumps of cells that happen to have human DNA.

a reply to: Achilles92x

I didn't mention children conceived through rape and have never thought it the child's fault. I can see the problem of mental illness occurring in the mother over a rape, which is IMHO a crime that should be severely punished when proved. I have never believed the deterrent has ever been severe enough to discourage this crime and so doesn't make people think twice about committing this type of crime, especially if a child may be conceived through it. Another aspect of this is that the responsibility is not there, which you touched on earlier.

originally posted by: ladyvalkyrie

....just know that is a ridiculously oversimplified view.

Right back at you.


Your right to slim ankles and smoke cigarettes at the bar ends when you do the BABY MAKING THING.


You were once a clump of cell, as was every other human being on the planet - BILLIONS AND BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of them - ALL the same beginnings.


I've stated here that both of our adoptions were special needs - there are challenges that go along with that.


That is not enough, and will never be enough for the God-haters. So be it.


You took the time to comment and castigate - what have YOU done? What have ANY of these stone throwers done?


Easy. Not ONE F_____G thing.


Besides complain about fat ankles.

a reply to: Seamrog

Ruling over LIFE vs. DEATH was NEVER, EVER given to you to make.

It amazes me the amount of self-serving, selfishness goes into these statements.

"My body!" "My choice!" "My right!" "ME, ME, ME!"

Simply because you have a uterus does not afford you the right to murder the human life that is growing within it.

It never has, and it never will.

Do you feel the same about the death penalty? Or casualties of war? Killing someone in self-defense? Drunk drivers? Just curious. You seem to feel that whilst denouncing other human beings' right to make life and death decisions, you yourself have somehow been elevated to a station above the rest of us and sit there on high, proclaiming from your righteous pulpit (with...dare I say?..."self-serving selfishness"...rather redundant but you said it so it must be ok, right?..) that you somehow have the right to decide who has certain rights and who does not. Newsflash: This is not about you or what you think. You are insignificant in the face of such a thing, so your pomposity and self-righteous bluster is wasted.

Simply because you do not have a uterus (and therefore no valid argument) does not afford you the right to police other people's decisions and hold them in moral contempt for disagreeing with your way of thinking with regard to their uterus and what may or may not happen inside of it. Are you insinuating that you are a divine being, and therefore above all reproach? If not, save the moral judgement duty for those who are, because you lack the qualifications necessary to fulfill that role.

The fact remains that until you have been faced with such a decision, you have no idea what you are talking about. Nothing that you say, no matter how much you try to shove it in people's faces, will change that simple truth. We are not talking about deciding what to have for dinner or what movie to go see.

Do you think that the vast majority of the women who have made the decision to terminate a pregnancy do not realize what a huge, life-altering responsibility making a choice like that actually is? You are trivializing something because you are so blinded by hatred and misplaced outrage that you refuse to try and see it from any other perspective, and that is always a mistake. That is called "tunnel-vision", and it is an epidemic in our society.

It prevents us from growing as a species, forces stagnation. And it is hypocritical in the extreme, nine times out of ten, because it is most often the most abhorrent people in the world who are the first to point their finger at others. Unless you can say that you have never committed a wrong, never made a mistake that you wish you had not made, never done anything that you can be held morally accountable for (by the proper authorities, of course), then you have no business sitting in judgement of anyone else on this planet.

I'll not be watching the video, I've gleaned enough from other posts to have an idea of what it contains. While I personally strongly disagree with the abortion of perfectly healthy babies with a viable future, there are many situations as others have already pointed out that sometimes leave few options.

My wife and I had to make a very, very hard decision for our family last April. I felt and still do, that it was the right decision to make..for my wife, son, myself, and most importantly my unborn daughter. Situations such as ours are much more prevalent than many seem to think, and I would encourage people to take the time to research the statistical occurrences of such cases before making hardline judgement calls on the choices of others, and the options that should be available for them. There will always be a sadness in my heart, and it's something we'll deal with for the rest of our lives. Sometimes the humane thing, the compassionate thing to do is a hard choice, and perhaps flies in the face of the self righteous bull**** spewed by some.

I wrote briefly about it in this thread. kansas governor signs abortion bill

a reply to: Seamrog

I'm sorry, but does THIS look remotely comfortable to you?

I went from 130 to 200 and it was all baby/fluid. I had to get my mom to trim my toenails for me because I couldn't even reach my own feet. See those boots I'm wearing in the pic? They were the only shoes that fit over my swollen feet/ankles and the only ones I could even get on because I was able to pull them on. And I was unable to breathe when I was doing THAT.

Here's a challenge to all the "Pro-Life" men on this thread who will NEVER actually have to deal with a pregnancy: put a cinderblock in a backpack and wear it backwards (so all the weight is in the front) for 6 months. Straight. To bed, in the shower, driving, everything. Do this and I might respect your opinion a smidgen more. But it still doesn't give you the right to force your opinion on another person.

And you ask me what I've done? Um...I waited until I was financially/emotionally stable and then had planned pregnancies. And I have supported all my friends over all the years no matter what their situations were or what their decisions ended up being. But then again I'm not the one trying to dictate what other people must or must not do with their own bodies, so I would say my burden of proving my stance is much lower than a self-righteous anti-choicer.

Hmmm... why is abortion wrong.... well maybe because murder is illegal and not only that but its the worst type of murder an innocent child who cant stop it from happening.

a reply to: UnBreakable

But he is God and we are not.

a reply to: tinymind

At present we do not draft. The men and women who fight and put their lives on the line CHOOSE that for themselves.

a reply to: beezzer

I agree.

I just keep thinking about our inalienable rights. LIFE, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I guess many just don't see a fetus as life or something.