Pro-life/Pro-choice poll

[smiley]

Abortion is not murder and I think its disgusting to call it that. Attitudes like that are what causes some women to feel needlessly guilty and awful about themselves if they decide an abortion is the best option for them.

Lets look at the other option (if its a situation where the woman definitly couldn't support a child).

In this situation carrying on the pregnancy and giving the baby up for adoption is the only other option. If a woman decided to give up the baby for adoption she would still have to give up 9 months of her life to change her diet, drinking habits, smoking habits, put on weight, perhaps suffer back pain and hormonal changes.

There is also the social aspect of the pregnancy: having everyone she knows ask her when the baby is due, who the father is and make all sorts of well meaning comments asking if she's thought of names yet and whether its a boy or a girl. Telling people that actually she is giving the baby up for adoption would probably be quite awkward and embarrassing. It would require alot of strength of character to not let people make you feel bad. People would want to know why, alot of people would pass judgment on the woman for giving up her child. This might make her feel guilty and unhappy as well as feeling heavy bloated and pregnant.

Its not like you could hide away during the entire pregnancy to avoid awkward questions. Its not like you could drop everything in your life just to go away somewhere else until the baby is born.

Becoming pregnant is a huge commitment. The people who say there are 'better' options to termination need to appreiciate that the reasons a woman has for considering an abortion in the first place may also be reasons why pregnancy is not a viable option. Perhaps it might be because she is still in full time education and can't afford to take time off, perhaps she has no job and no means to support herself (never mind a kid) and I imagine that trying to find a job while pregnant might put potential employers off. Perhaps she wants to make something of her life and to do that needs to finish her degree or college course and taking at least a 6 month break to go away and have a baby could seriously mess up her life plan.

Also with adoption there's the chance that you could have the added pain and emotion of the kid turning up on your doorstep in 20 or so years time looking for answers and wanting to build up a relationship with their real mum.

Adoption cannot be looked at flippantly. It will have an adverse affect on a woman's life during the pregnancy, many months perhaps even years afterwards and it may come back to bite you in the bum a few years down the line.

Abortion cannot be looked at flippantly either. It is something no woman would ever want to go through and any sensible woman who has had adequate sex education will do as much as possible to avoid the situation where they might have to choose to terminate a pregnancy. But if it comes down to choosing between abortion or adoption then a termination allows the woman to carry on living her life. It can be kept personal. The whole world won't have to know you gave up a baby. In my opinion it is not murder as the foetus has never lived. It is inside the womb and has no awarness even of itself. Abortion is not termed murder. It is 'termination of pregnancy' i.e. stopping the pregnancy from continuing any further. Not taking a live child from a mothers womb and killing it.

I am pro-choice and I respect the fact that some people think abortion is wrong and would never have one. I don't respect the people who think it is their business what a woman does with her own body. No one has any right to say that adoption is the 'right' thing to do and abortion is the 'wrong' thing. Thats personal opinion and while abortion may be the wrong thing for many women its the right choice for others. Calling abortion murder may be Sid's personal opinion but if he was to meet a woman who had become pregnant and was exploring the options available to her I would hope that he would keep that particular opinion to himself. A woman in that situation needs support whatever she chooses to do.

If I became pregnant at this stage in my life, final semester of my degree, a bright future ahead of me, I would choose to have a termination. Beyond any doubt. I would not feel guilty about this and I think anyone who would try to make me feel guilty should mind their own business because what I do with my body is nothing to do with anyone else. Obviously there will be some people out there who think this makes me a horrible person and they are entitled to think that as long as they don't try to make me feel like a horrible person just because thats their personal opinion.

[motorhead]

i liked the story about the rythym method, wild horses wouldnt hold me back at the point of ejaculation.

[Sid]

We went to the same school, you should know what the rhythm method is, I think you're talking about the pull-out method.

Quoting motorhead from 23:17, 5th Apr 2006
i liked the story about the rythym method, wild horses wouldnt hold me back at the point of ejaculation.

[Guest]

*Much applause for Miz Manda*. Thank goodness there is somebody posting on here who can argue the pro-life side so well.

I am making this point regardless of the fact that she is evidently a Christian / Catholic. All too often people immediately assume that all pro-lifers are - whoever said that the abortion issue could only be argued from a theological viewpoint? Atheists and agnostics can be pro-life, and in America there is a feminist organisation devoted to this. And before you say that the majority of pro-lifers are Christian, is that any justification for sweeping generalisations?

When I was about 16/17 there was a girl in my school who got pregnant - I went to a strict Catholic school. She carried on with the pregnancy with support from the staff and us in her class, and she continued going to all her classes. This was despite the fact that her boyfriend decided he wanted nothing to do with her. She was never condemned, nor did she have any decisions forced on her. She gave the baby up for adoption, and said that despite the difficulty of being in the situation at first, she wouldn't have done it differently. That's my experience of your so-called "lambasting" Catholicism. Seems to me like you're just condemning people for being compassionate.

[token Cath]

'rufus'

If you wish to dwell on semantics...I fail to take your point that pro choice(as you define it meaning the "indelible right" for a women to choose what do with her own body) is any different form me refering to pro-choice as pro-abortion. im not suggesting that all people who refer to themselfs as "pro-choice" are positively champing at the bit for women to have abortions, however if you are pro-choice you are certainly not anti-abortion are you?..why does the phrase "pro-abortion" make you feel so uncomfortable if you are happy with the logical implications your "pro-choice" stanse?

[Sid]

Quoting smiley from 23:05, 5th Apr 2006
Abortion is not murder and I think its disgusting to call it that. Attitudes like that are what causes some women to feel needlessly guilty and awful about themselves if they decide an abortion is the best option for them.

Lets look at the other option (if its a situation where the woman definitly couldn't support a child).

In this situation carrying on the pregnancy and giving the baby up for adoption is the only other option. If a woman decided to give up the baby for adoption she would still have to give up 9 months of her life to change her diet, drinking habits, smoking habits, put on weight, perhaps suffer back pain and hormonal changes.

There is also the social aspect of the pregnancy: having everyone she knows ask her when the baby is due, who the father is and make all sorts of well meaning comments asking if she's thought of names yet and whether its a boy or a girl. Telling people that actually she is giving the baby up for adoption would probably be quite awkward and embarrassing. It would require alot of strength of character to not let people make you feel bad. People would want to know why, alot of people would pass judgment on the woman for giving up her child. This might make her feel guilty and unhappy as well as feeling heavy bloated and pregnant.

Its not like you could hide away during the entire pregnancy to avoid awkward questions. Its not like you could drop everything in your life just to go away somewhere else until the baby is born.

Becoming pregnant is a huge commitment. The people who say there are 'better' options to termination need to appreiciate that the reasons a woman has for considering an abortion in the first place may also be reasons why pregnancy is not a viable option. Perhaps it might be because she is still in full time education and can't afford to take time off, perhaps she has no job and no means to support herself (never mind a kid) and I imagine that trying to find a job while pregnant might put potential employers off. Perhaps she wants to make something of her life and to do that needs to finish her degree or college course and taking at least a 6 month break to go away and have a baby could seriously mess up her life plan.

That's why women should be more careful when they have sex.

Also with adoption there's the chance that you could have the added pain and emotion of the kid turning up on your doorstep in 20 or so years time looking for answers and wanting to build up a relationship with their real mum.

Adoption cannot be looked at flippantly. It will have an adverse affect on a woman's life during the pregnancy, many months perhaps even years afterwards and it may come back to bite you in the bum a few years down the line.

Abortion cannot be looked at flippantly either. It is something no woman would ever want to go through and any sensible woman who has had adequate sex education will do as much as possible to avoid the situation where they might have to choose to terminate a pregnancy. But if it comes down to choosing between abortion or adoption then a termination allows the woman to carry on living her life. It can be kept personal. The whole world won't have to know you gave up a baby.

If you a mistake you have to pay for it and face the consequences, even if you make a big mistake. Abortion these days is seen as a quick fix and used far too frequently.

In my opinion it is not murder as the foetus has never lived. It is inside the womb and has no awarness even of itself. Abortion is not termed murder. It is 'termination of pregnancy' i.e. stopping the pregnancy from continuing any further. Not taking a live child from a mothers womb and killing it.


I am pro-choice and I respect the fact that some people think abortion is wrong and would never have one. I don't respect the people who think it is their business what a woman does with her own body. No one has any right to say that adoption is the 'right' thing to do and abortion is the 'wrong' thing. Thats personal opinion and while abortion may be the wrong thing for many women its the right choice for others. Calling abortion murder may be Sid's personal opinion but if he was to meet a woman who had become pregnant and was exploring the options available to her I would hope that he would keep that particular opinion to himself. A woman in that situation needs support whatever she chooses to do.

Yes that is my opinion, which I'm entitled to, if someone is terminating what could have been a living person like myself I see it as a form of murder. Not quite cold-blooded but in some instances selfish and thoughtless. Also, why do you assume I'm a male? I'm a female.

If I became pregnant at this stage in my life, final semester of my degree, a bright future ahead of me, I would choose to have a termination. Beyond any doubt. I would not feel guilty about this and I think anyone who would try to make me feel guilty should mind their own business because what I do with my body is nothing to do with anyone else. Obviously there will be some people out there who think this makes me a horrible person and they are entitled to think that as long as they don't try to make me feel like a horrible person just because thats their personal opinion.

I don't think it makes you a horrible person, I think it makes you in the first place irresponsible for getting pregnant (unless you were extremely unlucky), and secondly selfish. I too am in my final year and have my whole life ahead of me, if I were unlucky and fell pregnant I'd have the child and keep it, without a doubt.

[Sid]

I just had a little think there. I thought to myself, what if by some mistake I was pregnant how would I really feel about it. And my first thought was devastated. I would be completely and utterly shocked, upset and devastated. But, then I thought well, it wouldn't be all that bad. I would miss out on so so much. I am desperate to get out of Scotland, but if I got pregnant I'd have to stay, at least for a while. Financially I am in no situation to raise a child, but fortunately the government really helps out single mums. I know that I would have to say goodbye to a lot of things, but I still couldn't have an aborotion, I couldn't even give a child up for adoption. So why is that? With me, I believe that the minute conception has taken place that's it, there's no going back. I'd be the carrier of a future human being, it's not a parasite or an embryo, it would be my child, my future son or daughter, so how could I terminate that?

People do think of it differently in that in the first few weeks or so it's just a bundle of cells (I'm still a bundle of cells) or an embryo and that I can understand, but what I can't comprehend is how a woman, who is supposed to be maternal, could hav,e what would have been her son or daughter terminated, ended. Personally I find the whole thing very cold and very harsh.

[Rufus]

Quoting token Cath from 15:25, 5th Apr 2006
'rufus'

If you wish to dwell on semantics...I fail to take your point that pro choice(as you define it meaning the "indelible right" for a women to choose what do with her own body) is any different form me refering to pro-choice as pro-abortion. im not suggesting that all people who refer to themselfs as "pro-choice" are positively champing at the bit for women to have abortions, however if you are pro-choice you are certainly not anti-abortion are you?..why does the phrase "pro-abortion" make you feel so uncomfortable if you are happy with the logical implications your "pro-choice" stanse?

Hello.

Touché. The term pro-abortion does not make me uncomfortable at all.

In my eyes (which are a little myopic, I'll concede), the debate over abortion is a debate over rights rather than morals. The rights of a woman over her body, the right of the unborn child and the right of the father.

Pro-choice means that I respect the right for a woman to have an abortion, it does not mean that I'm necessarily happy about that decision. Pro-abortion makes it sound like abortion isn't a bad thing; of course it is. For all involved.

But there are worse things, and I happen to think that bringing another child into the world whose parents do not want them is one of them.

The term Pro-abortion connotes a certain militancy that the term Pro-choice does not, and therefore I prefer pro-choice.

Edited for bad wording. That's still there.

[Rufus]

Quoting Sid from 00:51, 6th Apr 2006
Personally I find the whole thing very cold and very harsh.

Is anybody decreeing abortion not to be 'cold and very harsh'?

It's an unpleasant process that no woman would go through breezily.

Whilst your convictions that you yourself would never have an abortion are admirable, they are insulting to those who have gone through an abortion.

Open your mind a little, and accept that sometimes unpleasant things have to be done. Someone mentioned the old aphorism of 'not judging someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes' and I think you would benefit from absorbing that.

Cue hissyfit.

[Sid]

Quoting Rufus from 01:19, 6th Apr 2006

Quoting Sid from 00:51, 6th Apr 2006
Personally I find the whole thing very cold and very harsh.

Is anybody decreeing abortion not to be 'cold and very harsh'?

It's an unpleasant process that no woman would go through breezily.

Whilst your convictions that you yourself would never have an abortion are admirable, they are insulting to those who have gone through an abortion.

Open your mind a little, and accept that sometimes unpleasant things have to be done. Someone mentioned the old aphorism of 'not judging someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes' and I think you would benefit from absorbing that.

Cue hissyfit.

No I'm not saying that all people don't think of it as cold and harsh, but reading some of the comments on here I'd be forgiven for thinking so. Some people have been really flippant about it.

I'm not trying to insult anyone. And I think it's unfair to assume that becase I said I wouldn't I'm also having a dig at other women.

I mentioned before that I was from Dundee, and as you'll all know the girls in Dundee only have to blink in the direction of the opposite sex and they're pregnant. I have had people close to me who have ended up in tricky situations, some have chosen to end their pregnancy and some have gone on to have their child. I'm not talking with a blindfold on, I know exactly what I'm speaking about.

[raheli]

Well, no doubt all of this has already been said, but I have a few points to add:

1)Pregnancy and childbirth are not no-risk propositions. Women still die regularly, the freaky immune-suppresion thing the fetus does can trigger autoimmune disease, and then of course there is all the pain and upleasantness, which scare me silly.

2) I would argue from an esoteric biology viewpoint that the child is NOT half the man's unless he is willing to invest in half the care. He sure hasn't invested anything in actually bringing it to term. Much of our biology and society revolves around the man having to persuade the woman to give him children; I think it's wrong that he should be in the position of forcing her to. It's a sort of long-distance rape.

3) A miscarriage is sad; a stillborn baby is tragic; but an infant that dies of cot death is agonizing. Does this tell you something?

4) You can say that a child is a child regardless of how it was concieved, but I'd like to see you be the one to tell the 12-year-old victim of rape that she has to go through the excruciating pain of childbirth (a case which actually came to court in Ireland in the 80s).

5) If a fetus is a human, then shouldn't we make the same effort to save it's life if it is sick or deformed? About a third of pregnancies abort spontaneously. Shouldn't we be trying to save all those poor hopeful monsters?

Needless to say, I am pro-choice.

[novium]

i feel much the same way.

Quoting richey from 12:31, 3rd Apr 2006
I'm alright with the fact that abortions are legal and happy with the fact people can have them if they want...

...however I would never ever kill my own child. I could never live with it. So I am personally pro-life.

[hr]

"In anger nothing right or judicious can be done."

[novium]

I think that it would be hard to avoid using such language when describing what you'd think your own reaction would be. If I were to explain why I don't think I'd be able to go through with an abortion, I'd use equally emotional language, because it is those deep dramatic feelings that would motivate my decisions. I would not be using the language as a way to judge other people. I would not be saying I was right. Someone earlier said "kill my own child" and was accused of emotional language. But I would feel the same way, I would probably think of it in similar terms, so when one is speaking of oneself, why should language be limited to the most bland and neutral wording?

Quoting Rilla from 13:12, 3rd Apr 2006
As Insight said very well, this is NOT a black/white issue.
Noone ever said the decision was easy.
Noone ever said it was a nice situation.

And emotive language should be avoided (though this is generally impossible, given the emotions involved with the situation).

But please, Sid - "Blood on your hands"?

Using language like this screams of judgement on people.

And it's very, very easy to judge people from a righteous position.


Eugh, I hate these arguments.



[hr]

Time Dedicated to You.

[hr]

"In anger nothing right or judicious can be done."

[novium]

Or someone who can seperate church and state.

Quoting Sid from 14:11, 3rd Apr 2006
A pick and mix catholic.

Quoting Colleen from 13:44, 3rd Apr 2006
I'm a pro-choice Catholic, so please stop assuming this decision is to do with religion and nothing else.

People should be free to make the choice (I say people because it's both parents decision) and have the ability to do so with medical facilities to help this.

If abortion was made illegal (I'm looking at you, South Dakota), it would still happen, but it would happen illegally and under unsafe conditions. You're risking the life of the mother there and that can't be a good thing.

[hr]

"In anger nothing right or judicious can be done."

[Senethro]

Quoting Arashi from 13:21, 5th Apr 2006
Senethro - I heart you. I want to conceive your babies. And then abort them.

<3

You made reading this thread bearable.

This post just made all that effort worthwhile. Thank you. I'm glad that someone read it.

[Senethro]

Quoting Sid from 00:19, 6th Apr 2006
I see it as a form of murder.

You'd be wrong, murder is unlawful killing.

[Rilla]

Quoting Sid from 17:40, 5th Apr 2006
What you describe is a very difficult situation, however, if it were to happen to a relative of mine then I would encourage them to do the right thing. But, it is not my body and not my conscience, all I could only ever do is offer help and advice and support their decision.

Sid

P.S I'm not a fanatic either, I just believe in pro-life.

Well done, Sid! I think you've just successfully argued for the pro-choice stance. It is not your body and not your conscience, and all you can do is offer help and advice and support their decision.

Whatever that decision may be.



[hr]

Time Dedicated to You.

[Miz Manda]

Quoting Rilla from 10:39, 6th Apr 2006

Quoting Sid from 17:40, 5th Apr 2006
What you describe is a very difficult situation, however, if it were to happen to a relative of mine then I would encourage them to do the right thing. But, it is not my body and not my conscience, all I could only ever do is offer help and advice and support their decision.

Sid

P.S I'm not a fanatic either, I just believe in pro-life.

Well done, Sid! I think you've just successfully argued for the pro-choice stance. It is not your body and not your conscience, and all you can do is offer help and advice and support their decision.

Whatever that decision may be.

I think the point is here that we can't force anyone do to anything. That doesn't make abortion right.

[Manic23]

Christ this is getting tedious

[ezra]

Sorry Sid, I'm just not willing to let you get away with that one. In your own words:

. . . if someone is terminating what could have been a living person like myself I see it as a form of murder.

So you clearly think that embryos are (potential) living people, and that killing them is murder; allowing them to die is presumably morally wrong just as allowing a person to die is morally wrong. But you also say:

Quoting Sid from 20:26, 5th Apr 2006
Clearly I would save the two-year old, that's whyit's such a stupid thing to ask. To even assume that someone would save a petri dish and let a child or anyone for that matter come to such severe harm is total stupidity.

and

abortion is . . . murder and a life full of guilt

Now this is when I point out that your position is contradictory. On the one hand, you think that embryos have a moral status on a par with full-grown people. On the other hand, you're quite happy to let five of them die, in order to save one (the two-year-old-girl). But if you think that the things in the petri dish are morally on a par with people (such that killing them - abortion in vitro, if you will - is murder), then the hypothetical situation should be a bit of a no-brainer. You're obliged to save the greatest number, which in this case means saving the petri dish.

Do you follow? Either you think that abortion - killing embryos - is murder, in which case you've got to save the petri dish (and that's crazy, as you rightly note), or you think that it's permissible to save the small girl, in which case there's a salient difference between two-year-old girls and clumps of cells in petri dishes. You can't have your cake and eat it, Sid.

Last point: yes, it's a hypothetical situation, but that doesn't make it stupid. The point of the hypothetical situation - the thought experiment - is that it allows us to get clear on which principles you're committed to. How unlikely it is to actually occur is entirely irrelevant; this is conceptual analysis, not forward planning.