Abortion

[Splint]

Of course you're absolutely right. I just wanted to add that clearly there is a difference between a foetus - which has done nothing wrong to anybody and an American... I mean an Iraqi!

I would accept that if the most common argument wasn't "The sanctity of life". Where's the line? "Fetal life" which is only speculated about and not proven, versus the well established known lives innocent men, women, and children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[slapdash21]

This is the typical kind of arguement against abortion - that you are "killing" a human. Maybe this is true. But let me ask you a question - why is it wrong to kill people? I'm not saying it isn't - I'm a pacifist - I don't believe in killing people. But I have some strong logical arguements for why I believe that. I'd like to know if you have some logical arguements too. Pretend I am saying it's ok to kill people - tell me why that's wrong. Whenever I come across issues like this - I try to ignore my emotions as much as I can. The whole point of emotions are to make you feel differently about something so that you basically have a better chance of breeding or preserving your life. Emotions are trying to cloud your mind. I'm not saying emotions are wrong - just I think you need something stronger than emotions to make ethical decisions - that's what philosophy is all about - using your brain instead of your heart.

ok, if you agree to carry on this discussion with the assumption that aborting the fetus is murdering a human being, just for arguments sake (i do actually believe that, but there is no reason for me to think that you do), then the obvious reason why its wrong to murder the fetus is the same reason its wrong, or even illegal to murder everyone else. there is an issue of practicality...if everyone went around murdering anyone they wanted to, there would be absolute chaos in society. i honestly believe that if there were no consequences for murder, than many many people would do it.
in the medium of anarchy, and with the pretense of social darwinism, even in this case it isnt right, and doesnt make sense, because social darwinism is ok for animals, but with the technology that humans possess, it wouldnt be long at all before humans led to our own extinction.
within the laws of current society, life is one of the rights that humans have. you are encroaching on the rights of another human being if you murder them.
also some families may rely entirely on the life of the person you are murdering, for finacial support, protection, etc. while this wont be true with a fetus...it is just a general fact.
meh, halfway through this my girlfriend called and i absolutely lost my train of thought...dangit.

[lightningbolt]

If the jesting part? Because if that's said in jest it means you're jesting about jesting which means you're serious...

Oh shit!

Maybe I shouldn't use any words anymore that I'm not sure about the meaning.

[carl winslow]

Im against the death penalty, against the war in iraq, and against abortion,

[sPinko-Mania]

Jeremy is on the right track I think.
If your answer to this problem is 'taking human life is wrong' then you need to identify what it is about human life which you value.
Then you have created some criteria about what you value morally.
Then you can apply this to a fetus and see if it also has this thing which you value. Being a human being (as I take it, this means having the correct DNA) isn't valuable in the slightest to me.

[Jeremy]

Exactly. Human's are no more or less special than any other form of life - both in terms of being able to take away lives or having their life taken away. To justify not killing people I need much better logic than that.

There is an excellent short story by Phillip K Dick (author of the books that the movies Total Recall, Blade Runner and Minority Report were based on) called "Human Is"

Many people are happy to eat a cow - but won't kill their pet dog. They're opposed to murder, but are happy to support a war where thousands of people are being murdered. I'm not saying these people are right or wrong - but there is an obvious reason why they can do that. The same reason most people eat meat (and most animals for that matter - lets face it, humans aren't any better than other animals - thinking we are just makes you arogant and elietest) is the same reason most people are happy to allow a woman the right to control her own body.

Of course there have always been people in the world who have believed that women are inferiour and that they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about their own bodies for themselves. Personally I think those people are wrong - and I trust the judgement of any person to do what is right for their own body. Actually that might not always be the case, but I understand the fact that they probably have a better idea of what's good for them then I have. I also think that their body is their responsibilty. If they do the wrong thing to it - it's not my responsibility - it's theirs. They should be free to make whatever decisions for their own life as they want.

[jbalexdarkelf]

I think this post was about abortion not about the peple in iraq or the war in iraq. its on abortion so please dont drag other things into it.

[jbalexdarkelf]

Has anyone even seen a baby that has been aborted? I have and its sad.
I was in a hospital and i saw this jar on a table. Insise it was a small pale
baby about the size of my thumb. You could see its viens, its heart, its spine even its little fingers and its feet.

I asked the doctor who was there about what had happened. He said that it was a product of an abortion.

You have your opinions and i have mine.
There is no way that anyone on the face of this earth that can convince me that that was not once a living child and that " aborting it " was okay to do.


No matter what the situation that the mother was in, it was wrong.

Heres my answer to a couple of questions

What if she was raped?

Rape is wrong. No doubt about it, but it is the rapist that should be punished not the baby.

How can you be pro-life but be for the death penalty?

A baby is inocent, it hasnt done anything wrong. A criminal is a convicted person, there for not inocent.

[Jeremy]

Surely a woman has the right to control what is in her body. Why should other people force her to keep something in her body that she doesn't want.

Also regardless of how I think on this issue - I don't believe I have any right to decide what is best for women in general - they can make that decision for themselves. It seems to me that it's inherently sexist that the current governments that are made up almost exclusively of males should make rulings to stop something they have not and cannot experience or probably understand.

Most laws in our society come about because breaking those laws is deemed to have a negative effect on society. Morality isn't really an issue - since this is contentious and debatable. However it's clear that things like robbery, fraud, murder etc. have a negative effect on the productivity of society. Abortion does not have this effect - if anything abortions increase the productivity of society in the cases where they occur. If the particular woman is morally opposed to abortion - she is free to make that choice not to have an abortion - just as I am morally oppossed to owning a car and hope to never own one.

Pro Choice means you believe people should be allowed to choose how their lives are run - this can easily be extended outside of abortion.

Pro Life means that you believe that you, or somebody else has more of a right to choose how somebody else’s life is run than they do. This can also easily be extended beyond abortion.

[Senor Grommet]

Interestingly, thread creator, you said:

"Rape is wrong. No doubt about it, but it is the rapist that should be punished not the baby."

What you failed to factor into your equation is that birthing the baby may be unduly punishing the mother of the baby. Are you saying that, although the mother has already been hurt physically and emotionally (by a rapist), you would force the same torment upon her a second time by forcing her to have a baby that she may not even want? Can YOU play G-d like that, making decisions for other people?

I think that anyone making a decision for another (in this context) is wrong. Only the mother can make an informed decision, and only the mother's decision is right.

[Moxie]

John (Alexander), the site of an aborted baby is sad and ugly. It is an egg which was fertilized and then terminated. If it was still about the size of your thumb, do you think it was able to think? Do you think it was conscious and aware of it's environment before termination? Maybe those questions don't matter, that's just another can of worms.

You have your opinions and I have mine.

A baby is inocent, it hasnt done anything wrong. A criminal is a convicted person, there for not inocent.

Should we bring up the rates of how many people have been convicted then released later after being proven innocent? Or even worse, the number of people on death row who were proven innocent? Nah, different thread. People are not out to punish the fetus, that's not what the decision is based upon. (No one is saying "this baby has done wrong, lets punish it with death.")

In my opinion, a fetus is a potential human being. In the stages when it's still small enough to close your hand around, I think of it as a plant or very small animal. Yes, there is life in it, but it is not a person yet. Still, the decision to abort it should not be made lightly, just like the death of any creature. I don't approve of abortion as a form of birth control. But the majority of women who get abortions have probably weighed the consequences of their decision.

No matter what the situation that the mother was in, it was wrong.

I talked wit a Dr. about four years ago. One situation she told me about involved a girl who was eleven years old who was two months pregnant. If that little girl would of given birth to the baby, the doctor said that there was no question that the eleven year old would have died or had horrible health consequences. Since the girl was eleven, I don't know if she was able to make the decision or if her legal guardian would be the one to decide if the girl would abort the pregnancy or not. If the eleven year old tried to carry out the pregnancy, it is very likely that the baby would have died or had serious health problems, so would the mother. How is that the right thing to do in that situation?

Heres my answer to a couple of questions

What if she was raped?

Rape is wrong. No doubt about it, but it is the rapist that should be punished not the baby.

It has already been addressed (quite well), but yes, if a woman has already lived through a rape, making her have the baby puts her in potential emotional and physical danger. She should be able to terminate the pregnancy.





There are sights worse than aborted fetus'. These two pictures show some "medical equipment" which was used when abortions were not legal or were very hard to get approval for. Women would pay money to hack doctors who would perform abortions in alleys. Not sterile, many of the "doctors" performing the "surgeries" had no real training. Many women ended up in the hospital after these procedures because the crochet hook or coat hanger would get caught inside the woman. Some would bleed to death in alleys. Many also got very bad infections.

I would rather people practice "protected" sex with female and/or male birth control. But if that doesn't happen, I would rather a woman make the decision to terminate the fetus in a safe environment rather than an alley. If you said "yes" to my question earlier about if the fetus was aware of it's own environment, how would it feel being killed by the sharp end of a coat hanger stabbing it to death and being dragged out of the woman's body? Or worse, what if the baby lived through that?

______________
Emily Kulczyk

"Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows." --David T. Wolf (b. 1943)

[C-Fan]

Abortion is a very interesting moral debate. Is a fetus a life? Is killing a fetus murder? These are very hard questions to answer, and frankly I`ve heard arguments on both sides which are very compelling.

Personally, I`ve thought hard about the issue, and I still don`t know what to think. Is abortion morally wrong? Maybe. I honestly don`t know.

Despite this, I am pro-choice.

Why?

Abortion isn`t just a moral issue. It`s also a public policy issue. The legality and availability of abortion has quantifiable effects on people`s lives. Because of this, I think people are asking the wrong questions regarding abortion. It seems to me that right now, the debate around abortion centers around questions like: "When does life start?" and "Is a fetus a baby?"

I think people should be asking questions like: "If abortion were illegal, would people have fewer abortions?" and "What would the public health effects be if abortion were illegal?"

In other words, I think people are focussing on a moral question which is hard to answer, instead of focussing on a public policy question which is easier to tackle.

Back in the 1920s, Americans recognized a major problem in America: alcohol. Back then people realized that alcohol led to accidents, fights, domestic violence, and a whole host of social problems which were not desirable. America amended its constitution and made Alcohol illegal. This was known as prohibition. Did making alcohol illegal stop people from drinking? No, it didn`t. All it really did was strengthen organized crime, and lead to a spike in death and blindness due to lack of government regulation of alcohol quality (people were making gin in their bathtubs).

You don`t have to use your imagination to predict what America would be like if abortion were illegal. You can probably just ask your parents, or grandparents to tell you some stories. Go to the old-folks home even. Up until the 70s, abortion was illegal in the USA. Did that mean that nobody was getting abortions until 1970? No. Rich women flew to Canada to get legal abortions in hospitals. Poor women took drastic dangerous measures to try and miscarry. The coat hanger is the most infamous symbol of this, but women did lots of things to try and miscarry, including massive doses of LSD, throwing themselves down stairs, and lots of more unpleasant things.

Abortion is an incredibly difficult thing, both physically and emotionally. It`s not a decision anybody makes lightly. If abortion is legal, some women will make this incredibly difficult personal decision and go through with the operation. Others will choose not to. If abortion is illegal, women will still have to make this difficult decision. If they are rich, they will probably be fine. If they aren`t and they choose to have an abortion, their health will be significantly more at risk than if it were legal.

Is abortion morally wrong? I honestly don`t know. But even if I came to the conclusion that a fetus is human life, and abortion is murder, I would still be pro-choice, just because I know that making abortion illegal won`t stop it from happening, it will only make it more dangerous for those who make the difficult decision to go through with it.

[pips]

Ok. I used to think that abortion should be legal. I guess I was pro-choice. I had the thought that whatever was in the mom's uterus was not a human yet or something like that; it was just a developing egg. I did not know anything and just probably thought that if I was in that situation, I would want to do it.

Well, I got in that situation about a month ago. I found out I was pregnant and thought, "Ok, well it was unplanned, I am young, I am in school, blah blah blah, I don't want it." I secretly looked for abortion clinics online, because I knew my mom would not let me do it, because she takes the Bible's word that even the egg has a soul that goes to heaven when it fails to live. I also looked to see how safe and effective it seemed. Everything KIND OF seemed ok to me. So I found a clinic and told my sister about it. One day I was on my way to my sister's house to schedule an appointment at the clinic I thought was best after I was done with my classes. It turned out that my boyfriend's friend got in a bad wreck and was in the hospital with life support. He left work immediately to go see him. That meant that the restaurant we all work at, was one person short, so my sister got called in to help. By the time I got to my sister's house, she was gone and working; she forgot to call me and let me know. I didn't get an appointment.

I think that what just happened saved me from a HORRIBLE mistake. Also that day, my mom made me go to a teen pregnancy crisis center. The lady there asked me some questions. She grabbed a pamphlet that showed what a baby looked like at a certain number of weeks. I was eight weeks at the time. Want to know how much that kid could do? It had everything that a normal human had, but it was only an inch or so in size. It even sucked its thumb. Then she got into abortion. She asked me if I would ever kill a person. I said no. She showed me that pamphlet again and asked if I would kill this picture or this one. I just shrugged. Then she showed me some pictures of aborted babies. All I saw were just piles of bloody tissue with an arm or leg or head sticking out here and there. She showed me more. By this time, I was crying. I don't know why. I guess I was feeling bad that I even thought about abortion. I think I was also scared. I don't know; I was just very, very upset. Then she told me what happens to a mother (or whatever you want to call her) who had an abortion. Some of them can never have a child again. Some of them end up with infections. Some of them die. Some of them have emotional problems, becuase they can't accept themselves for what they have just done. My mom told me that that is why my aunt's sister is a nut. There were other things, but I can't remember them all. She told me that clinics were not clean, that they didn't care about their patients.

Do you know what abortion is? They give you a pill that messes with your hormones. Then 24 or 48 hours later they give you some other pill that makes your uterus cramp up like crazy and reject its contents. Then you go into the surgery room (awake or not awake, your choice) and they take some object similar to a vaccuum cleaner and suck everything out of you. They also scrape stuff out of you with pointy objects. Then they take all of the stuff (the uterus tissue and pieces of the baby) bag it up and throw it away somewhere. It is not pretty. One of the pictures the lady showed me was the gargabe room FULL of bloddy bags and containers.

She also told me that sometimes, abortion doesn't work, then she showed me some pictures of babies from failed abortions. It was horrible. I was crying so hard. The lady told me that she knew it was hard, but there is no easy way out. She mentioned adoption as a better choice. She let me know that there are people out there who can't have a baby and want one soooo bad. She gave some examples of those people. How they would try, end up with a period, try again, end up with a period, try again...She even said she was one of those people; her eggs kept settling in her fallopian tubes instead of her uterus, and she would have to go through abortion. She said even that was tough (being forced to have an abortion). It wasn't the same abortion. It was safer and done with real doctors and in the hospital and all that. I don't know.

Anyways, she calmed me down and got me set up for a doctor and Medicaid and WIC and all that. I am planning on giving the kid up for adoption; although, this even seems hard for me. Deep down, I really want to have my baby and raise it, but I just don't feel ready yet. I guess I just wanted you guys to see this issue from a pregnant women's point of view. After all of that, I think that maybe the pregnant person should have her choice, but she better be informed for what she's in for. Maybe the issue shouldn't be based on whether it is killing someone or not, but also whether it is harming the pregnant person or not, because chances are that it is hurting her.

Away from my story and about jbalexdarkelf's raping comment and then Senor Grommet's response, I don't think that the women is being punished if she has the baby. If I was her, I wouldn't want it either, but I wouldn't want to hurt myself physically in the process. I would live with it for nine months and then give it up for adoption. It would be very tough, but probably a better solution.

I really just think you all need to see some of the things I have recently seen to get a good idea of what you think about abortion. I barely knew anything about it and supported it, and now I know a lot about it and don't really support it anymore.

[Jeremy]

Quite an extreme story - best of luck getting through it - I'm glad not to have to deal with an issue like that personally.


Something I wanted to say - I hope you don't find this offensive.

I think Ken made some excellent points and I think it's clear that the woman you spoke to had already made a decision on this.

"would you kill a person" - in my opinion shows immediate bias towards a particular decision. She's infering that the feotus is a person - which many people would argue that it is not. I think it's a little disturbing that a person in such a position would allow their personal feelings to influence other peoples decisions in such a manner.

I have two friends who have had abortions and I know that they feel - or at least tell me that they feel - that they made the right decision on that. They are both perfectly healthy and had no follow up health issues related to the abortion as far as I'm aware.

I'd really like to know some actual figures on the chances of the procedure going wrong. I remember a very contenscious tv show last year I think that showed in graphic detail the whole abortion process (and had people attempting to get the show banned before it was even aired) and I don't recall any mention of things going wrong. Interestingly the woman who presented the show had a similar experience to you - she was originally going to get an abortion but changed her mind after finding out what it entailed. However she presented the show as an objective look at what happens with an abortion - not argueing either side - and she interviewed a lot of people from either sides of the arguement.

I wish I could remember what it was called because it was a fantastic documentary - does anybody know what I'm talking about?


Anyway I'm glad you got to make a decision - this is the point I guess of what I was argueing earlier. That people should be free to make their own decisions. I'm sure you wouldn't have been happy if the decision to have an abortion or not was made by someone who had never met you and who knew nothing about you. There's only one person who knows what's best for the people involved - and that's the person getting the abortion.

Regarding adoption - that's a great solution in many circumstances - but there are also times when it's not a good solution. It really depends on the person.

[pips]

She did seem very decided that abortion was wrong and no one should ever do it. When she first started talking to me, I was like shut up lady I don't care, that's your view. Then she even got to the religous issue. I am not even a very religous person. She asked me what religion I was, and I said Lutheran, and then she she went on and on about God and all that like I was some Jesus freak. I didn't like that.

Like you are saying, I just don't want to take the chances that COULD happen and decided that adoption is a better choice. I guess the lady didn't say that some girls leave the clinic as healthy as she came in. I do think that she was biased the other way, but she scared me. I still have the view to a certain point that what's inside me is not a fully developed human being, but as my opinion, being eight weeks at the time and now even more, I think that I, personally, am too far along to abort now. I would feel very bad if I did it now. But if I found out about this at like 2, 3, 4 weeks...I probably would not feel so bad because it is barely more than just an egg. That is my opinion on where abortion would be ok and not, but off of the killing someone else issue, I don't think it is too safe for the pregnant person to risk herself. Maybe I still am pro-choice; I just hope the pregnant person is well-informed before she decides. Maybe it should stay legal and in the decision of the pregnant person, but maybe some law should require abortion clinics to inform their patients about what could happen. This is a hard issue.

Oh yeah. On some site, the pills procedure is like 98% effective, but severe birth defects happen if it fails.

[Moxie]

Chrissy, it is good to hear that you have made a decision that you are comfortable with. I would like to make clear that I am not attacking you or your decision. With that said:

"would you kill a person" - in my opinion shows immediate bias towards a particular decision. She's infering that the feotus is a person - which many people would argue that it is not. I think it's a little disturbing that a person in such a position would allow their personal feelings to influence other peoples decisions in such a manner.

I have a friend who in high school had a similar experience to Chrissy. The teen pregnancy counseling establishment was funded and run by a church. Many of them out there are apparently funded and run by churches and/or groups which are very conservative. The people at this specific place had a script which they were given to learn when they started working/volunteering there. The woman knew just which questions to ask to try to convince my friend to not have an abortion. She knew how to make my friend cry and feel unsure and guilty for even considering having an abortion. People who have babies can also split up with the father, can have health complications, depression (giving up a baby can weigh very heavily emotionally on someone too), and all of the other threats that were suggested to someone who has an abortion. And pictures of failed abortions are ugly. So are pictures of miscarried pregnancies. I wonder how many miscarriages occur compared to “failed” abortions, and I wonder when those failed abortions happened, and if they still do.

The abortion pill terminates the pregnancy. The woman takes the pill at the clinic, goes home, and doesn’t have to go back unless she experiences any pain or prolonged bleeding. Her body expels all of the waste. This can only be done up to a certain point in the pregnancy. For a surgical abortion (I'm not sure the proper term for this), the woman can either be asleep or just kind of half conscious. Either way, the doctor numbs up the whole area and uses something similar to a vacuum to suck out all of the waste product. Abortion is not pretty, but neither is the surgery they perform when giving a heart replacement or liposuction. I don’t get why people seem to use the blood and “ugly” as a reason why abortion shouldn’t be allowed. I’m told that if you go to a respectable establishment for this procedure, which you should anyway, they take careful precautions to make sure that the patient never sees what was removed. And either way, you are in and out of the clinic in the same day, not 24-48 hours later.

As for clinics not being clean or caring for their patients, well, I don’t know what kind of experiences they’re drawing that conclusion from. I know some women in my are who volunteer to escort women from their cars into and out of Planned Parenthood to protect them from the picketers. The volunteers do it out of the compassion and goodness of their hearts. And when I went to that clinic with my friend in high school, she was treated with compassion and respect. They took very good emotional care for their patients.

She let me know that there are people out there who can't have a baby and want one soooo bad. She gave some examples of those people. How they would try, end up with a period, try again, end up with a period, try again...She even said she was one of those people; her eggs kept settling in her fallopian tubes instead of her uterus, and she would have to go through abortion. She said even that was tough (being forced to have an abortion). It wasn't the same abortion. It was safer and done with real doctors and in the hospital and all that. I don't know.

Did she give you the impression that the people performing abortions at clinics weren’t real doctors? Does anyone really think that the government would let someone perform medical procedures and dispense prescription medicine without the proper training/requirements/standards?

Maybe the issue shouldn't be based on whether it is killing someone or not, but also whether it is harming the pregnant person or not, because chances are that it is hurting her.

Away from my story and about jbalexdarkelf's raping comment and then Senor Grommet's response, I don't think that the women is being punished if she has the baby. If I was her, I wouldn't want it either, but I wouldn't want to hurt myself physically in the process. I would live with it for nine months and then give it up for adoption. It would be very tough, but probably a better solution.

Pictures of a woman’s body which has just gone through labor when it wasn’t ready would be ugly too. If a woman is forces to go through a pregnancy after a rape when she doesn’t want to- you don’t think that’s wrong to do to her? That seems like the type of situation where she would take things into her own hands. That seems like the situation which would prompt a hanger or throwing one’s self down the stairs. The physical pain and problems from an abortion are had over the course of a few weeks vs. having the baby which lasts for 9+ months. After having a baby, it takes a body a long time to get back to normal. And postpartum depression can be a serious condition which occurs in many women after pregnancy. I can’t imagine going through nine months (or eleven for women in my family) of being pregnant and not even getting a baby out of it.

Maybe it should stay legal and in the decision of the pregnant person, but maybe some law should require abortion clinics to inform their patients about what could happen.

They do. They tell you everything.

Oh yeah. On some site, the pills procedure is like 98% effective, but severe birth defects happen if it fails.

Yes, but they correct the problem if the pill does not do it's job. They don't say "Oh, well the pill failed, you're just going to have to have a defected baby."

I really just think you all need to see some of the things I have recently seen to get a good idea of what you think about abortion. I barely knew anything about it and supported it, and now I know a lot about it and don't really support it anymore.

I have seen those same pamphlets, I have heard those same statistics. I have done a fair amount of research. I have seen someone go through having an abortion. I support the women’s right to decide.
_______________
Emily Kulczyk

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." -Albert Einstein

[BainbridgeShred]

Sounded more like a re-education camp than a "teen crisis center".

[pips]

Good arguement Emily. Thinking over everything I have been saying, I noticed that I have been saying that I chose not to abort, confusing myself with what I think I still believe in--the right of the mother to decide--and thought that I had changed my mind over the issue. Now that I think about it, I really still would like the right to decide, because I know I hate being told what to do by other people, although I chose not to, and it wouldn't have affected me. I chose not to out of fear and guilt and whatever else, someone else may want to choose the other, but I am not that other person, and I am sure she doesn't want someone to tell her what to do either.

[BrianP]

I dislike being told what to do as much as the next person, but I really do not think that addressing this as an issue of pro or anti-authoritarianism gives justice to the underlying ethical turmoil surrounding it. I might feel that I am justified in stealing from a large corporation due to it's overabundance of money and my childhood of poverty, but that does not make my theft any more justified.

Freedom for all requires that all have less than total freedom. There is a very thin line between making sure that we can live how we want without greatly hampering others from living the way that they want. The simple statement that a women should have a choice about her own body does not take adequatly into account the latent beginnings of life within her.

I am not christian nor conservative, but the term "pro-choice" sickens me, as it denotes (at least to me) that the women is choosing her future freedom over that of the latent life's future. I am not in a position to state whether or the the fetus is less than or fully human at any particular point in time; discussions of this nature are primarily of religous interest and are not particularily important to my line of reasoning anyway. I do believe that a very large choice is made in the process of sexual activity, and that the possibilty of resulting pregnancy ought to have been on the minds of those engaging in the sexual activity in the first place. For either party responsable to ignore this or put it to the side so that the abortion can take place with less guilt is unconscionable. I believe that many women in our country have been convinced that it is their natural right to have an abortion, and that our portrail of abortion is the cause.

Despite all I have said, I vote so that abortion can continue to be legal. Why? Because men in our society do not have to stay with the children they take part in conceiveing, and are not the ones who frequently find themselves unable to finish school or who have to work full time and raise a child alone. The child support men pay is not close to sufficent to make up everything that goes into raising a child.

Another reason is that many women, if forced to have an unwanted child, will care for it rather than put it up for adoption. Adoption, in many of these cases, would be for the best, but forcing adoptions is not somthing the state can get away with, you simply cannot force a women to go through labor and take her child. And I say "care for it" very loosly; how can you care for a child properly when you are a child yourself? When low income young mothers begat lower income younger mothers, the result is a multitude of unhappy young people who make up for much more than their share of crime and use disporportionatly large amounts of tax dollars through state and nation run rehab and mental health centers, prisons, battered womens shelters, welfare checks, ect.

Basically, the choice comes down to which decision ends up with the best probable outcome. I believe that the societal allowance of abortion gives women the freedom to continue on with their lives and make positive contributions to society, as well as the possibility to later have children and raise them well. Wow, I am really tired, I think I will finish this later.

[BrianP]

By the way, this is not 100% how I actually feel about the issue, but it's some of the stuff I try to take into account to justify my belief to myself.