Horror of Abortion!

Post Reply New Topic

I should illustrate some of my perspective.

I have a younger brother who got his girlfriend pregnant when he was 18.

At the time, she told him that it wasn't his. It turns out that she had been sleeping around a lot, so perhaps she had good reason to believe this.

My mother demanded paternity testing, and even had to drag my brother more or less physically to get it done.

So, we know that the resulting little girl is my niece.

My brother, being a jackass, joined the army thinking that this would allow him to run away from responsibility. The army does not find that amusing, and for 4 years did not let him forget how dim of a view they take of that sort of thing.

My mother stopped pressuring the two to get married when the mother got herself pregnant again while my brother was in basic training.

By the time he got out of the army, my brother's daughter had 2 more half-siblings, from 2 different fathers.

Generally speaking the mother has custody except when she can't hold down a job, and the kid comes to all of our family events that she can make it to. We have been quite serious about including her as a member of the family, despite the fact that her mother is a dumb slut.

We're quite lucky that this girl is smart - smarter than both of her parents combined, in some respects - but she's had to grow up in the sort of poverty and chaos that i would not ask any child to live in.

She has never gone hungry, but she was born into an extended family that is both middle-class and well educated. At least on her father's side.

I'm not saying it would have been better to abort this child. But neither of her parents were qualified to care for her when she was born or for years after, and her mother still isn't.

If she'd been put up for adoption at birth, there is no doubt that qualified parents would have been found. But she wasn't, because we were determined to know this child and consider her one of our own.

Almost all prospective adoptive parents seem to want to start with a clean slate and no strings attached. They want to raise a child to be part of their own nuclear family and no other.

So therein lies the rub. We lack a social structure that lends itself to a more ideal scenario.

And we are beset with social conservatives who paradoxically insist that every zygote be carried to term, and insist that impoverished families should just buck up and get a job instead of depending on assistance.

I'm against abortion. But I'm also in favor of guaranteeing that every child within our scope of influence is properly fed and cared for, no matter what their parents have done to annoy us.

I doubt that any but a very small handfull of women take a decision to abort lightly. Or a decision to give a child up for adoption. Or a decision to try and make it work even though they know they don't have the resources to do it.

These are hard decisions, and they all know that they have all three of them, whether or not you'd prefer to erase one of them from existence. The cat is already out of the bag. You cannot un-strike the bell.

So i am pro-choice, because people have to make their own hard decisions.

My first point in response is that the study was funded entirely by Planned Parenthood. I personally don't trust these sorts of studies unless they have a deceleration of funding and conflicts of interest. The study has also been hugely criticized for equating safe with legal and unsafe with illegal.

Incidentally, this study has both and found that restricting access to abortion did have an impact on abortion numbers:
New, Michael J, (2011) State Politics & Policy Quarterly 11(1) 28–47



US abortion numbers increasing with decriminalization.

Koonin LM, Smith JC Ramick M, Lawson HW. Abortion surveillance: United States, 1989. MMWR CDC Surveill Summ 1992;41(5):1-33.

Koonin LM, Strauss LT, Chrisman CE, Montalbano MA, Bartlett LA, Smith JC Abortion surveillance: United States, 1996. MMWR 1999;48(SS04):1-42.

The same trend is evident in the Greece, the UK and France

Piero et al (http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... 0.full.pdf) pg 193

The same study found that the legalization of abortion in Spain did not effect numbers, but they admit that Spanish women were mostly just going to other countries to procure their abortions.

What state do you live in? I'll show you how many kids are available for you to adopt.

That isn't right. You should listen to anyone making out a clear point. Although to be honest the line 'It has always been and will continue to be a woman's choice' is quite lol-worthy given evidence used to support this by the opposing side.

I have no problem with giving people a choice to do something when it should be in their hands. Rape and Health reasons. But why should I give someone a special right to kill off a Human because it's convenient, say contraceptive in this case, just because they are in their body? Also this is an argument that is floating in mid-air. A Just-so fallacy. I can almost hear people calling me a misogynist now for saying that they shouldn't use logical fallacy.

Legality is irrelevant? Don't like visagrunt hear you. The Law is there to protect people and order society in the way people with legal imperium consider fit, whether than be legislator or judge. The only reason why there are not the metaphorical hounds of hell rapping on the doors of every woman who has had an abortion is because the law says she can have one.

Do we? I and 91 have braved hard shores to put out the fact that adoption agencies do exist. And it can take up a larger share if only people didn't neglect it.



Apart from abortion I would be considered the most socially liberal man in my town probably.

I appreciate your contribution, but I simply don't have the time to go through all these studies. I'll take you word for it that they contradict the study that I presented, however, I do not agree that associating illegal with unsafe and legal with safe is at all problematic. If you needed to have your appendix removed, wouldn't you consider a non-sterile environment with untrained practitioners and risky, unapproved methods to be unsafe?

No study on the subject can be without a significant margin of error, simply because there are many abortions (both legal and illegal) that go unreported. I will say, having known a handful of women who have chosen abortion - some before it was legal, that those decisions were not made lightly, but they were unbending. I also have a daughter myself. She is fiercely independent. I can and do guide her and hope she makes the right choices as she gets older, but mistakes will be made. I would strongly urge her against abortion (I'm personally opposed myself), but ultimately, she is her own person. I know that God forbid if she ever found herself in this position, the choice would be hers and hers alone.

I recently saw an interview with a couple who lost their daughter to an unsafe, illegal abortion. She was 14 and they didn't even know she was pregnant. If a woman, or girl, is hell bent on ending the pregnancy, then that's exactly what she will do. I feel that we have a duty to keep these girls and women safe. It's not our position to judge them. We can offer assistance, make adoption an easier and more attractive choice, but it is impossible to stop abortions. I try to avoid absolutes, but it really applies here. It is impossible.

This is what I mean by legality being irrelevant. Similar to prohibition and gambling laws. Try as we might, a law simply cannot have the final say on a woman's body or it's contents, even if we view those contents as precious, God-given life (which is also not a view held by all).

not to mention that with legalization the numbers of reported abortions are expected to rise quite sharply, beforehand they would never have been known.

Abortion laws do protect people. They protect women and girls. Are they not worthy of the same life protection afforded to fetuses?

I would love to live in a world where abortions were non-existent, but it's just not so and never will be. I understand the argument that fetuses are are precious life, but I can't hold a fetus. I can hold a girl. Personally, I put more value on the lives that are here. I don't expect everyone to share my views, but I think it's delusional to think that making abortion illegal would ultimately save lives. I believe it would actually accomplish the opposite.

You're missing the point.

A lot of pregnant women seem to feel that if they don't terminate the pregnancy, they will absolutely keep the baby. No matter how ill-prepared they are to care for it.

There's a good chance that they feel this way because they know that adoption will likely mean that they will never be a part of the kid's life.

If terminating pregnancy is not an option - and i hold that it is an option whether or not it is legal - you are increasing the number of children who will grow up in unstable, impoverished households.

The number of traumatized kids in foster care is way bigger than the number of infants that come up for adoption in a year. You are proposing to increase the number of traumatized kids.



So do you support universal health care and welfare for children?

Legal is not a synonym for safe and illegal is not a synonym for unsafe, thankfully. Lots of jobs in the world can involve hazards, but that does not make them illegal. Trying to make such a claim that legal equals safe only tries to manipulate the law for its own purpose.



I am one of the strongest atheists on this site thankyou very much and I am on the opposite side. This has got nothing to do with God. This has got to do with where we draw a line in stone and say which human right takes precedence. Whether this is God-given or not has nothing to do with the debate.

And I will have you know that a law can have a final say on anything from murder to jaywalking. Protecting a Human is not outside of its jurisdiction whether you want to live behind the audacious claim that the law cannot have the final say on something or not.

Socially liberal has nothing to do with Universal healthcare. Socially liberal means I got no problem with gender, ethnicity, marital status, sexuality, your wage or anything else.

But since you asked yeah I got nothing against Universal Health Care. I like the NHS. I think people are a bit tardy about making it efficient though. As for welfare for children what do you mean? You mean making sure children aren't bullied by their parents? Well sure, I mean I like Childline for that. I don't mind UK social services doing its job in moving babies or children from abusive parents, although again people whinge so much about public services being inefficient that they don't actually try to make it more efficient.

Generally I prefer progressive taxation, a moderate sales tax and as low as possible corporation taxes to balance the budget. My belief is that when it comes to capitalism corporation taxes get in the way of investment, especially for small companies who otherwise live on a knife edge, whilst progressive taxation sticks the middle finger up at rich people who want to make a personal empire that s**ts on society. That and bugger huge bonuses. It's just tax avoidance. Who the hell gives guys in London big bonuses anyway? Where are they going to go if you don't? New York? Good luck avoiding the protester's wrath. Hong Kong? Have fun avoiding the inflation from China.

One thing I really, really hate is the subsidy the EU gives to farmer's produce. Lower it at least. The Milk tariff for milk not in the EU is effectively 1000%. That's totally damn stupid. And the only damned reason why anyone objects to my opinion is some pseudo-racist remark that foreign produce will suck and kill you. Maybe in a polluted pool in China, but it wont be in the middle of Nigeria.

@Gedrene, i hate to break it to you but you are a conservative.

How am I 'conservative' exactly? Or are you just banking on a Just so fallacy being good enough?

They are kicking you out because you are pro-life. All I have to say is welcome to the Republican Party.

Pro-life means that pregnant women get more welfare.