Pro-life

[YawningAngel]

Abortion is a societally convenient form of not-exactly-murder which has done a great deal to advance women's rights. While I'm not exactly sanguine about it, I accept that it's probably a necessary evil for a host of reasons, ranging from the consequences to people who would otherwise be denied one to the difficulty of policing a prohibition.

 

[JayElleBee]

All I really have to add to the conversation is this hypothetical situation:

A woman is pregnant and it is a pregnancy that puts her life at risk. Most pro-life people would say that she should be willing to risk her life to have the child.

However, she already has one other child, a son for arguments sake, about five or six years old, young enough to still definitely need his mother and old enough that he would miss and remember the mother if she were to die.

This puts the woman in a position where she must choose between her unborn child - a fetus that if aborted, won't know any the wiser - and her son, who will miss her, have to grow up without a mother and will always be left wondering why his mother chose an unborn child over him.

What would you recommend the mother do in this situation?

 

[ZeroMachine]

All I really have to add to the conversation is this hypothetical situation:

A woman is pregnant and it is a pregnancy that puts her life at risk. Most pro-life people would say that she should be willing to risk her life to have the child.

However, she already has one other child, a son for arguments sake, about five or six years old, young enough to still definitely need his mother and old enough that he would miss and remember the mother if she were to die.

This puts the woman in a position where she must choose between her unborn child - a fetus that if aborted, won't know any the wiser - and her son, who will miss her, have to grow up without a mother and will always be left wondering why his mother chose an unborn child over him.

What would you recommend the mother do in this situation?

Might as well put my two cents in- I wouldn't recommend a damn thing and anyone who does should be ashamed of themselves.

It's a brutally difficult decision for the mother to make if she really wanted that unborn child.

You should simply make both choices and the consequences clear, and let her choose. If you give your own input on it, all you'll be doing is pushing your views on her.

End of story.

 

[Erttheking]

All I really have to add to the conversation is this hypothetical situation:

A woman is pregnant and it is a pregnancy that puts her life at risk. Most pro-life people would say that she should be willing to risk her life to have the child.

However, she already has one other child, a son for arguments sake, about five or six years old, young enough to still definitely need his mother and old enough that he would miss and remember the mother if she were to die.

This puts the woman in a position where she must choose between her unborn child - a fetus that if aborted, won't know any the wiser - and her son, who will miss her, have to grow up without a mother and will always be left wondering why his mother chose an unborn child over him.

What would you recommend the mother do in this situation?

As a pro-life person, I do believe that there are a handful of situations where abortion is acceptable, this falls into one of those categorizes, frankly I wouldn't criticize the woman even if she didn't have a son already. I guess my main problem with people that are pro-choice is that they talk about abortion like it has the same emotional trauma as taking a particularly bad dump. Seriously, when someone has a miscarriage it's considered a tragedy isn't it? My aunt had a miscarriage and she was devastated by it. Why do people treat this like it's emotion free? I'm pretty sure that if a woman DOES have an abortion, there's going to be some emotional trauma, even if they did what they think is right, they just made a pretty big choice.

So yeah, I'm pro-life, I understand the point of those that are pro-choice, but I think that they're absurdly blunt about it. Seriously, their mindset is basically suck the thing out and throw it in the trash. (If you are pro-choice and do not think that way, I apologize in advance)

 

[JayElleBee]

Why do people treat this like it's emotion free? I'm pretty sure that if a woman DOES have an abortion, there's going to be some emotional trauma, even if they did what they think is right, they just made a pretty big choice.

Personally, I know that abortion is emotionally damaging and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's not an easy decision but for some women I think it's the only decision they can really make, and it worries me when I see the more... hardcore pro-lifers insisting that abortion should be outlawed in every single situation. I've come across a few people who, in the above situation, would still deny the woman an abortion. It's that single-minded stubbornness that gets me.

I guess my stance on the matter comes down to this - a woman is not worth less than an unborn baby. While I don't think people should just be getting abortions left right and centre, I also don't think that women should be forced to put their lives or their quality of life at risk either.

 

[Erttheking]

Why do people treat this like it's emotion free? I'm pretty sure that if a woman DOES have an abortion, there's going to be some emotional trauma, even if they did what they think is right, they just made a pretty big choice.

Personally, I know that abortion is emotionally damaging and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's not an easy decision but for some women I think it's the only decision they can really make, and it worries me when I see the more... hardcore pro-lifers insisting that abortion should be outlawed in every single situation. I've come across a few people who, in the above situation, would still deny the woman an abortion. It's that single-minded stubbornness that gets me.

I guess my stance on the matter comes down to this - a woman is not worth less than an unborn baby. While I don't think people should just be getting abortions left right and centre, I also don't think that women should be forced to put their lives or their quality of life at risk either.

Compromises, they would solve the majority of the world's problems if people would stop being so bull headed and actually try them out.

 

[mental_looney]

Pro choice. I don't want to see everyone getting abortions but prevention of pregnancy is better but accidents can happen.

It's called responsibility. You fuck up you man up. Murdering your own child because you can't handle responsibilities is disgusting.

There are more reasons than just I can't handle the responsibilites. By that sense if you fuck up in your logic we should remove adoption as it's for people who don't want the responsibiltiy of the child either.

Why isn't making the choice to say look I can't afford to be pregnant for 9 months let alone take time off work once it's born so I'm making the best choice for me considered responsible. People can be responsible for the decision not to continue a pregnancy as well.

 

[Sjakie]

I have always considered misscarriages as nature's (or God's, if your into religion) way of saying: your not getting that baby.
This happens very often and people can only accept it when that happens, nobody condems nature or god when it happens.
So if women want to 'help' nature into making that happen: go for it.
I have a lot of respect for the women that make that hard choice: to choose quality of life (hers or the possible baby) over simple quantity (reproduction)

and besides, who am i to decide what goes on with another persons body? We used to have a name for that sort of behavior and it was called slavery

Dont approve of Abortion? THEN DONT HAVE ONE!

 

[Tommeh Brownleh]

I'm pro-mandatory-abortion. We have too many people on this planet and we don't need your unborn monstrosity to help. Please, for the love of God, don't add to the world population.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

I propose a ban on George Carlin quotes in political issues.

THEY.

NEVER.

SAY.

ANYTHING.

TRULY.

WORTH.

PAYING.

ATTENTION.

TO.

OT: Bad job trying to undermine the pro-lifers. You've done nothing to make me rethink my anti-abortion stance, if anything, you've made me more solid because of the ridiculous Carlin quote.

I really don't think he was trying to undermine anyone. The topic of the thread is to state your opinion, not attack others about it, right?

 

[Innocent Bystander]

21 Weeks in the womb: A baby reached out and grabbed the finger of a surgeon (Sarah Marie Switzer). A picture during the incident was taken by Michael Clancy.
"I was totally in shock for two hours after the surgery...I know that abortion is wrong now - it's absolutely wrong." Michael Clancy, Photojournalist, 1999.

Babies are alive, they feel pain after only a few weeks. Sometime to get the babies out of the womb they just cut them into pieces and pull them out (without killing them first). A baby will grow and be birthed unless there are interruptions, and cutting these unborn people into pieces is apparently "pro-choice." Adoption is ten times better than being "pro-choice."

I say people shouldn't interfere in what is not their buisness.

So I assume that Hitler killing 8 million Jews was our business, and as such we went to war, but not Americans killing 40 million unborn babies?

I'm calling it. Godwin. Thank you, I had to do that.
That said, that's sort of a bad comparison. A more apt one might be (in keeping with the Holocaust theme here) "If Hitler is part Jewish, and he wants to kill himself, is he justified in doing so?"

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Way I look at it, it's murder. Being against abortion does not make me anti-woman.

What about in rape cases or in the case of life saving abortions? I believe abortion should be legal for those two reasons alone.

Another good example is (I'm stealing this from a book somewhere, I'm sure of it) if a woman is pregnant and is about to go through some sort of medical process where the treatments will kill the baby. Is she justified in having an abortion then, if the baby is going to die fairly soon anyway? Or is she just supposed to forgo the treatment and die in the hopes that the baby will survive?

 

[Innocent Bystander]

I think the pro-life movement is a bit ridiculous, not to mention hypocritical. Why hypocritical? Because most of these pro-lifers are republicans who also cheer for executions,

But then again, what crime did those unborn babies commit?

I see youre point however i think hes taking up arms against the idea that these people cheer at the death of someone yet claim they value life. If they truly valued life then they wouldnt call for peole to be executed willy nilly and would instead look for other forms of punishment for a crime. Also i dont want this to turn into a debate on the death penalty as thats for another thread. WWhile a fetus hasnt commited a crime the circumstances are not black and white.

To quote my History of Crime professor "Life is precious, so precious that we will kill for it". note that this is a deliberately ironic statement.

 

[lacktheknack]

OT: Bad job trying to undermine the pro-lifers. You've done nothing to make me rethink my anti-abortion stance, if anything, you've made me more solid because of the ridiculous Carlin quote.

I really don't think he was trying to undermine anyone. The topic of the thread is to state your opinion, not attack others about it, right?

I doubt it. If that was his intention, then he should write his OPs more carefully.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm pro-mandatory-abortion. We have too many people on this planet and we don't need your unborn monstrosity to help. Please, for the love of God, don't add to the world population.

This is an utterly terrible position with zero foresight.

Unless you just want all humans dead, in which case, carry on.

 

[Hipster Chick]

I'm pretty firmly in the camp of "If you don't have a vagina, it will never directly affect you so you shouldn't get a say in it." Really. Regardless of religious or political affiliations, men cannot ever possibly bear the burden of pregnancy and as a result, them arguing about the viability of abortions is a bunch of pointless philosophizing that has very real effects on the rest of the population that can actually get knocked-up. Isn't there something better you all could be bitching about, like penises?

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

I am pro-choice... Main reason? Because THERE ARE ALREADY TOO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET, anything we can do to keep the FUCKING population down (even if it's just a little bit).
Also, I don't want anymore illegitimate bastard children and/or their parents on my fucking TAX dollar, I would much rather my taxes go to an abortion paid for by the government than fucking support someones fucking kid for 18 years because they cant fucking afford it.
Also, children are fucking leeches ALL of them... if some fucking woman doesn't want some fucking PARASITE leeching off of them for the next 18 and 3/4 years, then I say MORE FUCKING POWER TO THEM, give them a fucking medal, applaud them if necessary.
Lastly, for all of you fucksticks who are going to say "You were a child once too!" or "if you think the world is so overpopulated, why don't you kill yourself", you know what I have to say to you sir/madam? Eat a dick.

Usually the angriest people about over population understand the least about it. Abortions or in fact ANY measure taken in the western world to cut down world population are going to do jack shit. Because thats not where the growth is. All you would be doing then is letting that tiiiiiny orange bar fall further while the huge blue area gets even bigger. Useless. And it doesnt solve your problem. Addressing over population by trying to "attack" western population is like trying to drain a lake by siphoning off nearby puddles. Thats not going to work.

Children are a neccessary leech, its our job to train leeches to be doctors and firemen and maybe the next politicion who doesnt want to fuck you over so hard. Without the next generation we would have nothing and i can garentee that once youre older youll be happy as fuck that those young scientists and such are making your life better in every conceivable way with their work.

I think a baby is alive when it thinks. When the first solid neurone makes a synaptic link with the second and an action potential passes between them its alive. However this is pretty late into the pregnancy. So i think abortion is morally "just" before this point and acceptable afterwards in serious matters where the mother is in extreme physicall danger, the baby is in danger of being retarded, or the mother was raped ect. That said it should be llegal everywhere. But not encouraged. We should change our outlook to make abortion something horrible but neccessary to improve a poor unlucky womens life.

 

[Caverat]

Pro lifers believe that a fetus is alive. Consciousness is a sticky subject, so how can we call that crazy? Now going from that reasonable but wrong assumption, we arrive at the conclusion that abortion is murdering a tiny, helpless, otherwise healthy human being. Look at it from there reasonable but wrong perspective. Should a woman have the right to kill a child? Of course not. Pro choicers simply see that that thing is not a child.

Life is determined by an entirely opinion based subject like 'consciousness' now? So, simply being a living member of the species, even if of limited mental capacity(Which is a necessary stage in the beginning steps of our life), isn't enough? The expression of consciousness in interpret-able ways doesn't even really begin until more than a year after birth in some cases, when the baby really begins interacting with other people, and isn't just an entirely instinct driven eating machine/poop factory. If mental activity determines the humanity of an organism, abortions should be legal at any age potentially, as there will be humans who fail to meet the standards at them as well.

I am pro-choice, but the whole idea that something isn't a human because it doesn't meet an arbitrary list of human mental qualities is sillier than the idea that a human in the fetal stage of their life is a member of our species. The point I'm getting at is pro-choicers should focus on the fact that women deserve the right to control their own bodies, a fetus, while still human, is occupying space in their body, consuming resources, and can potentially pose a health risk. They have every right to decide if allowing another human to exist is worth the potential dangers and responsibilities that they will personally be forced to deal with by the nature of the situation.

It isn't like murdering a random other person in the street, a person who posed no threat and didn't stand to literally become the most time/resource consuming aspect of their life. It is a justifiable homicide, not murder.

Homicide (Latin: homicidium, Latin: homo human being + Latin: caedere to cut, kill) refers to the act of a human killing another human.

 

[CATB320]

Abortion ends a potential life. That?s the point. Problem is, I thought we were all supposed to be given the rights to things like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Normally, when someone?s right to life is taken away, we call that murder.

Give me a reason a child doesn?t deserve to live. Is it because they would grow up poor? Because they would have mental/physical disabilities? Because they?re the ?product? of rape or incest?

Tell me how that makes them less of a person, and why they don?t deserve a chance to live.

 

[Roganzar]

The notion "pro-life" was made so those people could feel better about who they are, calling it something that sounds better.

Yes, and the pro-choice crowd is not guilty of this, am I right?

While true, "Pro-Choice" is at least accurate. You know, since their stance isn't just "kill all the babies!!".

Also, have you noticed its mostly men leading the "pro-life" side of this. My opinion, simply put, if you can't pop a baby out of one of your orifices you don't get to have a say in what happens to a fetus/baby.