What do you think about abortion

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I'm a female who has had four kids. The last three were 18 months apart. After I had my last one I had uterine prolapse that corrected itself after a while and so my husband got a vasectomy. It could possibly be dangerous for me to get pregnant again, not that it would happen now I don't think (in menopause hell at the moment).

"I have a right to privacy, which means it's none of your business what I do with within the confines of my house, even if it means killing another human being in my house."

Sorry, right to privacy never gives anyone an excuse to commit murder.

How do you suggest the pregnant woman remove the baby when it's too young to survive on it's own then? I feel that she has a right to control who and what is inside her body, and if she wants that baby removed then she has the right to do so. Yes, she should use birth control to prevent the situation in the first place but sometimes that fails. Sometimes people don't use it. A consent to sex is not a consent to pregnancy.

If there were a way to get the baby out without killing it and allowing it to survive (other than going through the whole pregnancy) I'm sure that option would be taken by many more women. After all, aren't all those pro life protesters willing to adopt the babies? That would be the option in a perfect world, but that technology isn't available.

Also, murder requires intent. The intent of an abortion isn't to kill the baby. That is a secondary effect. Yes, it's the way it's done but that's because it couldn't survive on it's own if they did even just induce regular labor or do a c/s. Until there is a way to remove the baby from the woman's body when she wants it out of there, and keep it alive and healthy, there will be abortion.

When a baby is planned or even unplanned but wanted, usually the mothers first thought is of the baby and not herself because it's a priority. In the case of an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, her first priority is herself. She's thinking of the consequences that are going to happen to her and trying to prevent them. The goal of the abortion is to prevent the consequences. It's not the same as giving birth to a live baby and throwing it in a dumpster. There are many other easy options in that case that won't effect her. She will have to suffer whatever consequences for the pregnancy for months or years even if she does decide to give it up for adoption. It's when those consequences outweigh the benefits of going through with the pregnancy that a woman decides to abort.

Yes, I'm sure there are some women who don't care either way or don't think about it either way or see it as birth control, but I'm just as sure that they are the minority. I would say that the majority of women give it a good bit of thought before having an abortion.

Not a problem if it gets reported as such and evidence is documented to reflect that.


I hate to sound insensitive, but people who don't report crimes are complicit in their commission. If you don't report the rape, how can we believe you if you say you were raped? If you do nothing about it, it's as good as consent, whether or not that's the case.


Crimes should be reported and documented as quickly as possible after they are committed when something CAN be done about it.

In my opinion, which I know counts for absolutely nothing, rape is an especially evil crime because of things like this, such as fear being a driving factor in reporting it. It's also complicated by the fact that it can easily turn into he said/she said matter in which the alleged victim's word is taken against the accused. However, that makes it something that is EASY to prove in most situations and places men in perhaps the most delicate situation they should EVER be put in. The ease in which rape could be reported would serve as a deterrent against men from even seeking after willing sexual partners and shape our perception of morality in a profound way.

Of course, the accuser could be lying, which is equally wrong in my view. If this is the case, I still say give the girl her abortion. Why? 1) Rape, IF it happened, is easy to prove if reported and documented, and 2) there's no time IF the accusation is made to have a lengthy trial to determine the guilt of the accused. Ok, suppose the accused is innocent. That means two things: Lack of evidence, or the possibility that the girl is lying. If she's lying, she's in essence using the legal system to harm someone she had consensual sex with and duck out of the consequences for her actions that she should be held accountable for (having the baby). My hope is that society won't easily tolerate those who manipulate the system to purposefully harm others. And in addition to facing attempted murder/perjury charges through false accusations, she'd also be facing murder or manslaughter charges for obtaining an abortion under false pretenses.

If women are aware that falsifying evidence and falsely accusing those of rape just to rid themselves of the inconvenience of a pregnancy won't be tolerated any more than rightfully accused rapists would be tolerated, that would also serve to deter women from making such allegations.

It would clear up a number of problems, I think: Men (and women, but especially men) making poor choices of sexual partners, women from behaving irresponsibly and making false allegations, and protecting the lives of unborn human beings who otherwise have no defense from their murderous would-be mothers.

On the other hand, you could make premarital/extramarital sex a punishable crime...

There's absolutely no point using that argument though, because the people who accept your premise that abortion is murder are overwhelmingly the people who are anti-abortion.

Either challenge people using premises that they accept or agree to disagree.

It's interesting to see what his thought process looks like. Apart from the abortion = killing one, there is another premise I do not share, that rape can be easily proven. Such a discussion would have to start in defining what rape is, and that has huge derail potential

There's a pretty big difference between 'living inside my body, using my organs,' and 'inside my house.
Even if there was not a big difference, one can have the police remove an unwanted guest in one's house and one can have a doctor remove an unwanted guest in one's body.

Some links for AngelRho:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/v ... onviction/
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/28/o ... t-backlog/
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0 ... rape/?_r=1
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2012/04/why_i_didnt_rep
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... e_the.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rgasm.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... men-change

Missing the point here. The statement was made that a right to privacy trumps rights of a human being to live. In terms of privacy, what goes on in one's house is no different than what goes on in one's body.

Suppose I wanted to look at kiddie porn. Somehow my right to privacy will get completely ignored when the cops take me to jail and seize my computers. There are obvious limits as to what rights we do have to privacy. What happens inside our bodies doesn't necessarily have to be off-limits, either, especially if a living human being is involved. The irony is that human beings that temporarily depend on us sometimes have to also be protected from us in order to survive.

I've had anonymous calls made that I was abusing my own children. Did my right to privacy suddenly end because someone out there hates me enough to make a call intended specifically to take my children away? Or suppose I saw someone being attacked and dragged into the house next door and I called the police... Would that person's right to privacy trump the right to life of the person he's attacking?

Suppose someone tries to smuggle illegal drugs by swallowing the drugs or otherwise hiding drugs in body orifices. Would right to privacy prevent police from removing evidence from a person's body? It's inside the person's body, so the cops have to leave them alone, right? Except it doesn't actually work that way. Right to privacy does NOT cover EVERYTHING, whether in your own home or in your own body. And it most certainly doesn't give anyone an excuse to kill another human being--whether in or out of a human body, it's irrelevant.

Well it's legal so no one can stop someone from getting an abortion. If it was illegal people would just get illegal abortions or try possibly dangerous and/or ineffective methods themselves.

But Angel, sometimes it's not just a frivolous desire to get the baby out of her body. Sometimes it's a pressing need. The rest of her life could be ruined by continuing the pregnancy. Not every situation, no, but many. Also, it could cause her some pretty bad mental problems at times, especially if being legally forced to carry to term would mean severe family conflict, the loss of her job or relationship, chance of college, etc. Those are lasting consequences that she will have to experience for the rest of her life. Yes, I know the baby dies, and that is lasting as well, with no chance of getting better, but as I said before, if there were other ways of removing the baby and keeping it alive I'm sure that most women would opt for that, and just adopt it out. Also, (and this is going to sound cold but I don't mean it to) the mothers consequences outweigh the baby's because she is already here, functioning, conscious, etc.

I'm not saying a newborn has less value than an adult, I'm saying that someone already born has more of a right to life than someone unborn. I don't mean it cold, but it sounds that way. Also, the woman will live the rest of her like being aware of the consequences, and will be aware that they are about to happen before they do, where the baby isn't aware of anything that is about to happen, is happening, and certainly doesn't have any knowledge of what it's losing at the time. Again, that sounds cold but I don't mean it that way.

This wouldn't be the case for a newborn, again because the baby is in her body. Her right to share or not share her body outweighs the baby's right to live there for 40 weeks.

Also, as was said, your body and your house are two different things. A person can leave their house if circumstances become intolerable and move thousands of miles away and start over in a new house and can take their family with them, and can throw someone out of it without killing them at any time. However, she has no option to leave her body and start over in a new one someplace, and she doesn't have any other way of getting the baby out where it can live.

I see what you're saying, I do. But I'm wondering if you see what I'm saying. You don't have to agree with it to understand my point. Just that everyone has the right to their own body, and the reason abortion is legal is because it's done before viability (supposed to be but I'm sure sometimes mistakes happen). If the baby has no chance of surviving on it's own at the time, and the Mom wants it out, well first come first serve. She's there first.

I'd also like to ask why if someone's position on abortion is based on the sanctity of life, why it's ok for rape cases? If the sanctity of the baby's life outweighs the mothers life consequences in cases where she's voluntarily had sex, why does it suddenly not outweigh them in the cases where she didn't voluntarily have sex?

Of course I would never want a woman who had been raped to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, but I'm wondering if there isn't some type of undertone of punishment for voluntarily having sex there. It's almost like with the rape and incest argument, the womans value has increased more than the baby's because it was "done to" her but anytime it's "done with" her her value disappears.

Again, when technology advances to the point where the age of viability is much younger, abortion probably won't even be an issue. It would be induction and then adoption.

Irrelevant. That's an appeal to law fallacy. Laws change, people don't. I mean, the slave trade was legal at one point...doesn't make it right.

And it's completely irrelevant if people would only obtain abortions illegally. Crooks gonna crook, after all. Murder is illegal, and people still commit murder. The only difference is there are legal consequences, jail time, even the death penalty in some cases, for when it happens. The laws could change to prosecute abortion providers or punish DIYers in such cases where it could be proven that happens.

If they can't live outside the mother's body I don't consider it to be murder.

I'd take the chance of going to jail before I'd go through a pregnancy and give birth again. It's awful, much worse than having an abortion. Thankfully pregnancy can't happen to me any more.

If people are so "pro-life" then maybe they shouldn't be so against birth control the way many pro lifers are. If I could have got the norplant earlier or got on the birth control shot I could have avoided ever being pregnant at all. I always knew that I never wanted kids. I would have even had my tubes tied if I had a way to pay for it and they didn't give you such a hard time about doing it if you are young or never had kids.

It really doesn't. It's the CHOICE one has in conceiving that is in view here. Someone who voluntarily has sex assumes the risks and responsibility. One who is forced into sexual relations does not. That doesn't mean it's right to punish the baby for the circumstances under which it was conceived, but the woman does have the unfortunate task of deciding to show mercy to the child by allowing it to live or to preserve her own lifestyle and/or mental/emotional well-being by opting out of carrying a lifelong reminder of a horrific event in her life. It's doubly unjust. Like I said, I think it's wrong to end the life, even in cases of rape. But I also think it's wrong to end a life and not have anyone be brought to justice for it. If abortion results from rape, the rapist should be tried for murder.

I mean, there's no winning in the case of rape--causing a woman to become a murderer or forcing her to live with it. Or forcing a child to deal with being "tolerated" or killing it for no fault of its own. You HAVE to at least give the rape victim a choice for the sake of justice. It would be wrong to label a woman as a murderer when she didn't have a choice in conceiving a new human being, so the guilt in my view transfers to the person who denied the woman that choice.


I don't know about "punishment" by itself; I think that's a matter of perspective. Children are a blessing, not a curse. But I can't make everyone see it that way. So whether it's a punishment or not depends on how you look at it.

Simply not having sex would solve a lot of problems, though. We punish lesser crimes, so bringing back misdemeanor sex laws might serve as a mild deterrent in some situations.


I don't know about that...I mean, it's not about valuing/devaluing a woman's worth as a human being. In my view, it's about all humans having the same worth. If it's human, it has worth, and that extends to the unborn as well. All things being equal, a person's rights only extend so far as they interfere with someone else's rights. You can do whatever you want with your body as long as it doesn't harm someone else's body.

Suppose I get my AR-15 (no I don't really own an AR-15) and use my body to fire random shots where ever I feel like. And suppose one of those bullets just "accidentally" goes through a roof or wall of someone's house and kills them while they're sleeping. Well, so what if I killed you? It's my body, and if my body feels like shooting a gun and a bullet just happens to hit you, it's not my problem. It's my body and I can do whatever I want with it.


Maybe.

But Olive, sometimes it's not just a frivolous desire to get the murderer out of jail. Sometimes it's a pressing need. The rest of his life could be ruined by continuing the prison sentence. Not every situation, no, but many. Also, it could cause him some pretty bad mental problems at times, especially if being legally forced to live behind bars would mean severe family conflict, the loss of his job or relationship, chance of college, etc. Those are lasting consequences that he will have to experience for the rest of his life. Yes, I know the victim dies, and that is lasting as well, with no chance of getting better, but as I said before, if there were other ways of committing crime and keeping victims alive I'm sure that most criminals would opt for that. Also, (and this is going to sound cold but I don't mean it to) the murder's consequences outweigh the victim's because he is already here, functioning, conscious, etc.

...

I know you aren't trying to be cold and insensitive. I think you're honestly stating how you feel, and it's not my place to be judgmental, rude, or insensitive. I don't like to come across that way any more than you do, so please don't think this is a personal attack or crusade against you or anyone else here as a person. It's easy to forget how angry topics like this can make people on either side, and I don't think anyone needs to be reminded of that any more than I do. My concern is largely the inequity of justice in response to those who are the least able to defend themselves, and I feel that some of the statements made completely ignore those inequities. I wanted to continue to parody your remarks, especially your remarks concerning the unborn's awareness of what is happening to it, but felt that would have been going way too far in getting the point across. The difficulty in discussing things like this is that it's an ugly topic, which means in the absence of non-verbal communication the discussion can quickly turn ugly despite our best intentions. I feel the need to say that isn't what I'm trying to do here.

As has already been pointed out, there are those here who have been through unwanted pregnancy and abortion. It is not my desire to run roughshod over those who have actually experienced the kinds of hypotheticals we're discussing, nor is it my place to tell women what to do or how they should feel. If we could have our cake and eat it, too, the discussion would be a lot friendlier. But as long as human life is being destroyed, there will always be something to fight. I DO see justification in ending life in order to preserve it when and only when that is absolutely necessary; so despite the fact that I hate the idea of abortion in response of rape, I can't see a better alternative that ignores a rape victim's wishes. I can't be so sympathetic when the risk is voluntarily assumed. I have perhaps an equal lack of sympathy for a woman who aborts because her life is in peril and yet expresses no grief, whether openly or privately, over the NECESSARY loss of her baby. If I were forced to kill an armed burglar in the middle of the night, I'd grieve over the fact that someone died at my hands--never mind the fact that I didn't really seem to have much of a choice at the time. I'm just cold enough to slit someone's throat or pull a trigger to protect myself and my family, but I'm not cold enough to ignore that person had a family who cared about him, that he was someone's son, brother, husband, or father. Even though what I did was justified, that person is gone and I'm not. And there are thousands of what-ifs I'd have to face every day for the rest of my life, EVEN IF his family sympathized with me and forgave me for it. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was my son, I'd grieve every day that my son got in trouble and died for it. I'd forgive the person who killed my son in self-defense, and I'd tell them. But forgiveness on either side won't bring my son back. I can more easily forgive someone for justifiably killing one of my own children if they genuinely regret what happened and want to be forgiven.

My point is I have an easier time being sympathetic to a self-defense abortion if a woman had to make the choice and simply wasn't prepared to surrender her own life for that of the unborn. I'd rather lose a child than my wife any day, while my wife feels just the opposite when it comes to her own life. It frightens me, but it is what it is. Maybe I'm just being selfish. But in spite of my own selfishness and desire for my wife to live rather than die for her baby, there wouldn't be one day that passed I wouldn't wonder what that child would have been like had we chosen a different path. No, we can't have our cake and eat it, too. But to say that something that is human somehow magically isn't human and thus...

Wait...

It's like...we're not saying it's worthless, only that it's worth less. And I can't help feeling strongly the absurdity of that statement. The rock star is no better than the billionaire software designer who is no better than the homeless heroin addict who is no better than the octogenarian lying unconscious in a nursing home. If it's human, it has value as such. It's absurd not to extend that value to what we may consider the least of us. Even if killing can be justified in some way, the circumstances that would make killing justifiable cannot take away the value of any human life. They guy who wants to kill you is a human being, too. You choose your response, and the hope is that killing to preserve your own life isn't also killing in cold blood--that doesn't make you more noble than the person who wants to take your life. I think the death penalty is appropriate for certain crimes, but I don't go leaping for joy every time a murderer is executed--that only makes me bloodthirsty and no better than the one who dies a murderer with no remorse.

Abortion is no different. It is a dark blot on society when abortion can be celebrated when there is no justifiable reason for it to occur. It dehumanizes the unborn. I might as well say, "I'm white, therefore I'm human. You're black, therefore you're not. You have to be my involuntary servant now." Human beings are human beings, and I don't care how old you are or how "conscious" you are. Life is life, it is valuable, and must be protected until it isn't humanly possible to protect it. Unfortunate circumstances do exist that limit our choices, and I understand that. I think it is in the best interests of all to limit or eliminate those circumstances as best we possibly can in order to preserve human life and minimal cost to other human lives. And, no, I don't think that an interruption to college and career plans count. It's reasonable and possible to earn college degrees and build careers with children in tow, and I've known some who've done it. Maybe not at certain levels of prestige, but, honestly, prestige counts for very little in most places in the real world. Just my opinion here, but I don't see how those who take unnecessary risks that can severely impact career and educational paths are really that concerned with prestige. I have high publishing aspirations in the music biz, and I have yet to meet publishers who care about where their writers went to school. My best bet is to self-publish, network, and assemble the best team of songwriters locally to help me achieve my career goals. All the prestige I'd ever want would come from that alone, and I might have to decide whether I wanted to sell out to bigger, national publishers or just stay at home. Any woman with a baby could do freelance writing or graphic design between nursing and changing diapers. (No, I'm not a woman, but did I mention I'm a stay-at-home dad? 6yo, 4yo, and 15 months. I work two part-time jobs and divide my "free" time between feeding/teaching my children and working on areas of my work life I want to expand. It's not an interruption if it's an integral part of what you do, and I only require a babysitter for maybe two short hours a day, and that only costs me the equivalent of an hour and a half of my pay per week--my fees are high and I'm worth it). I don't buy the regular excuses because I know from experience they're built on false premises. In fact, replace "any woman with a baby" with "any person with a baby," and you'll get more appropriately what I'm getting at. I've been there with maybe the exception that I physically cannot grow and pop out a child, so it's easy for me to reject the whole "it ruins your life" argument. I can't buy the argument that irresponsible behavior (taking unnecessary risks) can be fixed with more irresponsibility (needlessly destroying human life). I don't buy the argument that "I'm just not ready" because, honestly, I don't see how anybody CAN be ready to start a family, even adults with solid careers and paid-for homes and cars. The easiest way for me to describe it is you just adopt little babies into your life, keep them clean, safe, and fed. For me, having kids just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, not something I really wanted. I wouldn't know what to do without them now, but that was just something that grew on me over time. That's not to say all people really are cut out to be parents, but for those people who aren't cut out for it, don't engage in behavior that is known to naturally progress to parenthood! Or if you do and you become a parent, be responsible, let the baby live, and, if you're unable to care for the baby yourself, at least try to get the baby where it will be cared for. Making excuses and shoddy rationalizations for killing a baby is not the best decision; it is cruel and unjust.

Last edited by AngelRho on 25 Jul 2013, 9:34 am, edited 1 time in total.