Why do so many people think that abortion is acceptable?

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Really? do you have a source for your claim that most abortions are done for those reasons? sounds more like people trying to tell women what their motivations must be and assuming things. Also I imagine you wouldn't be so ecstatically happy when the consequences of said law change become obvious...

Then I would tell them their religious argument is dumb, because in my religion, life begins 120 days after conception.

I am willing to listen to any anti-abortionist who has signed up to be a foster parent, and who is willing to take on a baby with major problems, such as a crack baby with a really abusive birth family.

There is nothing like an abortion debate to separate the people who live in the real world from the people who live in a philosophical la-la-land, where nothing they do has real consequences.

The responses from a lot of the men on this thread makes it painfully obvious that they have absolutely no idea what it is like to have a baby or raise a child. If I was this clueless I'd stay out of the debate, if I were you.

The world is full of women; why don't you educate yourself, ask some questions about what working while pregnant is like, what are some of the long term health consequences, what does it do to kids to grow up without anybody to love them.

I didn't know the last bit, so I asked someone who worked in an orphanage, and read some reports on the prevalence of child abuse in orphanages. Why don't you educate yourselves?

So many replies, apologies if I skip some.

I don't think I'm the one slipping here:



It seems to be the only sane position. When a successful conception occurs that "blob" has a good chance to exit the womb in 9 months and face life just as you did unless you interfere. I'm very happy to be schooled on when life occurs, how and why something is alive but no one here will have a consistent position that I can't pick apart. The terms will change, the logic will meander depending on that person's desire, they will say the fetus does not have X, X will often be a philosophical concept vaguely understood at best and most likely not present in toddlers either. Or if not it will be about no pain or fear for the little guy - which is not a good excuse. The most honest answer pro-choice people can give is "I don't know when that tissue increases in volume such that it can be said to be alive" and if that's the case surely its better to err on the side of caution.

The parasitic worm thing, we're back to dehumanising language again. Women who want the child they carry do not see it as such.



Would you have been happy when the law changed to stop persecuting gays despite never doing so yourself? How about blacks? I would be happy if people ended the mass infanticide yes. This is not about women, it's about their progeny.



Fair enough, I'll stick to human if you prefer. The ability of a human to love back has no bearing on its right to live.

A couple of people started talking about economic problems regarding care of these extra children. Not irrelevant but it's a tangent at best. I don't really wish to get into the darker topic of how much money someone's life is worth. Besides building a few hundred orphanages isnt going to break the bank compared to what western democracies spend on other crazy projects. Second point, you assume that with the abortion safety net removed, men and women are going to be just as careless. 100000 abortions a year do not mean 100000 extra babies a year if it were outlawed. I can certainly speak for men on this front, we would be 100 times more careful.



http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/ ... asons.html There have been a few surveys done. Short version in the first paragraph: "About 98% of abortions in the United States are elective" it's not unreasonable to assume this is true for other western countries.

And finally, @almost all of you it's not our call to decide whether someone's life is worth living and end their lives prematurely.

Then you're Muslim I guess.

Some Muslim scholars say "ensoulment" happens after 40 days though; there's no clear defining time in the Qur'an.

Well, that would be Buddhism and Jainism I guess....the Abrahamic religions seem to be pretty ok with murder all things considered.

That said, the religious viewpoint is simpler to deal with; if your religion tells you not to have an abortion, don't have an abortion.

For a non-religious person, it is a personal choice.

Religious people tend to want their rules to be imposed on all humanity.

They fail to compute atheism or non-religiosity, they don't have that much of democratic thinking.

Amen:)

I'd tell them to keep their religion out of my heathen uterus....lol

Also to respond to something above....I didn't say the clump of cells is a gross worm, I said it looks like one, point is at that stage its not a person it takes quite a while for it to develop into a person actually. Seems some people care more about things that can develop into people than they care about actual living people.

I mean for all the anti-abortionists, when are you going to go adopt a child or give to charity to help orphaned and unwanted children? I mean you can't have it both ways if you want to force every woman who gets pregnant to nurture that clump till it grows into a baby....then what are you going to do to help said children when they are born? Also maybe you guys ought to provide pregnancy care for women and any treatment they might need should the pregnancy cause them health issues.

Or you know people could let the pregnant woman make her very personal decision herself, instead of bringing the state in. Also a lot of anti-abortion people are right wingers, and a lot of right wingers hate taxes....how do you figure banning abortion will effect taxation the money to take care of these unwanted children would have to come from somewhere.

elective doesn't mean 'out of laziness and convenience' per say that just means it wasn't medically necessary for them to have an abortion. There is a number of reasons outside of laziness and convenience that would fall under that. Lets see financial inability to endure a pregnancy, any medical treatment during that and giving birth at a hospital, Simply being unfit to be a parent and smart enough to admit that to yourself, having a lifestyle that would be harmful to the development of a cell clump into a person, having a job and not being able to take time off without being fired.

Of course to you that could be laziness or convenience but, but its clear you disregard any effects pregnancy can have on the woman and seem to think its easy to just up and make all the lifestyle changes, magically be stable enough for a baby and all that should you get pregnant by accident.

So do the non-religious, if not all humanity then at least the people around them. For the record I did not come to be anti-abortion through religious teaching.



I'm open to the idea of adoption, but this is just a diversion. You can take moral stances on murder, rape and theft without having to personally take care of victims of these crimes. How many hours a day do you spend taking care of bereaved families of murder victims, or sitting at the bedside of rape victims? Do you personally reimburse people who have been victims of theft...? If I deem you not to have done enough, can we ignore your opinion?



Read the page a bit more. The extreme examples like rape, incest and medical reasons we discussed on previous pages make up a tiny proportion of abortion. Financial inability counts as a convenience issue, as does career problems brought about by the pregnancy. Making humans is always inconvenient even to the richest, that's not a valid excuse to kill them. Accidentally getting pregnant is also inconvenient ... whenever someone says "I'm not ready to be a parent or undergo pregnancy" he or she is saying "This is inconvenient. I don't want my life to change."

You make no sense rape, murder and all that are crimes and victims of those things do get help that society attempts to provide. Abortion is not a crime, and simply prevents unwanted children who will need to go into foster care or otherwise be taken care of by society....so you're confusing separate issues. I say if people want legislation to ban abortion then they ought to be willing to pay more in taxes and have some responsibility in dealing with the consequences of that. Perhaps every married couple without a child should be forced to adopt...after all its just laziness and convenience for a married couple not to be taking care of children right?

And yeah you're right there is some level of convenience in having an abortion...but financial inability, not being able to just quit your job and still financially support yourself, not being in any way ready to be a parent or even undergo a 9 month pregnancy...and feeling you'd be unable to cope with the changes it would cause are serious things to the women having to weigh these issues. But I am glad you're the authority on what priorities women ought to have.

Why is it 'lazy' for a woman not to want a baby...and take proper action not to have one should a pregnancy occur? Seems to me an implication that women are expected to have children...thus if pregnancy occurs we're lazy if we don't drop everything and prepare for a baby rather than terminating the pregnancy.

Well if you want it that way I say guys who impregnate women but want no part in having a kid should then be required to support the woman in her pregnancy financially and help take care of the child or put it up for adoption instead of just being able to 'walk away' from that one night stand with the sloppy sex where they decided to keep it a secret their condom broke for instance.

I don't know about anyone else but I am not a baby maker, ready to go into mommy mode should a condom break or something.

The analogy isn't perfect but you do dismiss my opinions unfairly. I assume you want murder, rape and theft to remain illegal? Lets say you take a moral stance on these issues and I started saying what do you know about anything? Do you run a prison? are you a police officer? will you throw the switch on the electric chair? Are you willing to pay the cost of law enforcement in order to deter people from committing these crimes? The obvious answer is yes, what you are doing is trying to smear me as one of those "out of the womb on to the battlefield" type republicans you find in the U.S.


Perhaps I should be the authority, apparently you struggle to discern the difference between being unable to make a sacrifice and being unwilling to make one. None of these concerns raised are insurmountable, either through societal or personal effort.



The laziness I was referring to was about not using contraceptives or using them incorrectly. But actually fits quite well with other scenarios you have raised.



That's a different issue. Most of the arguments about men being able to walk away from responsibility are only valid because abortion is legal in the way it is. Once that changes it's much fairer to demand men take responsibility, and they should.

Edit: Just to clarify


I have no problems with this at all. In a world with no or very limited legal abortion, using law to force the father to support the mother at least through pregnancy if not afterwards is a good idea.

Fine forget the adoption thing...as I have no idea where you are trying to take that debate.

Also I know the differences between being unwilling and unable to make sacrifices...and as pregnancy I think I'd be both unwilling and incapable of making said 'sacrifice'. And yeah very easy for a guy to chastise women for not wanting to make the sacrifices needed for pregnancy, childbirth and than giving up or caring for said child....because they don't have to make those same sacrifices. They don't have to have a thing growing inside them for nine months that becomes a baby, horomonal and physical changes the body undergoes, or the lack of mobility and general nausea and other side effects that accompany pregnancy....let alone how painful it is to give birth.

I am not obligated to sacrifice any of my time or energy having a baby just because you think its worth the sacrifice...and an accident happens, even if it were just because I simply don't want to and I wasn't as concerned about other risks.

I think you have a skewed vision of what lazy is....its not laziness for a women who doesn't want a child to take proper action not to have one. Contraception does not always work....the lazy thing to do would be not take a morning after pill(if you know the condom broke for instance), and then not look into abortion should it be too late for the morning after pill and continue a lifestyle that is damaging to thing developing into a person and then guilt trip people to help you cause you're 'pregnant' now. The responsible thing is if you can't or won't make the commitments necessary for pregnancy and childbirth is not to have the child.

Also I think both the male and female should be able to walk away from an unwanted pregnancy....and morning after pills and/or abortion is conductive to allowing that.

But its clear there is only disagreement to be had, no point going in circles anymore.

Indeed, there will always be disagreement unless someone answers my challenge from a few posts ago. That challenge being to come up with a logically consistent definition of when life begins. That is the starting point for any debate here. I said:
and I stand uncorrected, waiting.

If you pretend we have been talking about abortions occuring around the 8 month mark or even the day before the due date suddenly I seem like less of a lunatic no? It's not that your concerns aren't real, or that your problems with pregnancy are irrelevant, it's that they pale in comparison if abortion is in fact, the unjust killing of a human.