Abortion - a necessary part of life

[Johnny1]

I heard a statistic on the radio that was something like 10% of all Australian women aged between 16 and 30 had an abortion last year. Disgusting.

Why is this disgusting? Why is it not a blessing? You could have said instead, "10% of these women had the guts to do the right thing and spare society from dealing with a child who no one wanted." That unwanted child may go on to hurt or kill someone you love. It's a shocking statistic, but in the U.S., the *majority* of men in prison for violent crimes have been in foster care. Is this what you want, to have all these children born to people who don't want them and can't or won't take care of them?

Also...if it's so disgusting, are *you* taking care of any children who no one wanted? If so, please ignore this paragraph. If not, why not? Don't you have room in your house for even one child who's in foster care because no one wanted him or her? After all, you wouldn't condemn people for abortions if you weren't willing to show that you really mean what you say, that these lives are actually valuable. Or is it all lip service, like 99% of people who are anti-abortion?

 

[exarkann]

glowbug, that was genius...

 

[anna!]

Why is this disgusting? Why is it not a blessing? You could have said instead, "10% of these women had the guts to do the right thing and spare society from dealing with a child who no one wanted." That unwanted child may go on to hurt or kill someone you love. It's a shocking statistic, but in the U.S., the *majority* of men in prison for violent crimes have been in foster care. Is this what you want, to have all these children born to people who don't want them and can't or won't take care of them?

Also...if it's so disgusting, are *you* taking care of any children who no one wanted? If so, please ignore this paragraph. If not, why not? Don't you have room in your house for even one child who's in foster care because no one wanted him or her? After all, you wouldn't condemn people for abortions if you weren't willing to show that you really mean what you say, that these lives are actually valuable. Or is it all lip service, like 99% of people who are anti-abortion?

It's disgusting because I find it extremely hard to believe that 10% of all young women in Australia's birth control failed right as they ovulated. I don't have qualms with people having abortions because they aren't in the right place/time to have a child, but I do have a problem with the fact that SO MANY WOMEN are not using sufficient birth control when it is so readily available.

I feel incredibly empathetic towards women who fall pregnant despite doing the right thing, or as a result of rape, etc., and in that regard I feel that we should always have abortion as an option. But as I said, that 10% was not made up entirely of women in this position, and that's what I find disgusting. It's simply not good enough to just do whatever the hell you like, with no regard for consequences.

And no, I do not take care of any "unwanted" children. My opinion comes from being a stupid, heady 19 year old who thought it would "never happen to her", and who subsequently decided birth control was optional. Consequently, I have a nearly 3 year old who was entirely unplanned (and also a 9 month old who was fervently planned). I took responsibility for my choices in the way I knew how to, but what I really should have done is used protection in the first place.

I love my girls and my husband desperately, but I have no sympathy for myself or for other women who fall pregnant as a result of negligence.

 

[anna!]

Anna: like i said before, i dont support abortion as birth control, but sometimes peope make mistakes and it aint intentional stupidity or ignorance, its just a fuckin mistake. as humans we make those.

shouldnt happen all the time, but you cant write off anyone that get a abortion after getting pregnant accidentally as stupid. one thing i learned in life is you never know what someones story is.

No, absolutely not. My post refers to people who consciously (under the influence or not) make the decision to have unprotected sex, not follow the directions of their contraceptives or who don't utilise the morning after pill if it's available.

As I said above, my beef is not with people who try to do the right thing and end up pregnant anyway. It is with the portion of that 10% who should know better.

 

[fairnymph]

But perhaps the reason I feel that adoption (in many cases) is justifiable solution is because, in today's age, the actions that caused the woman to get pregnant in the first place are overwhelmingly at the fault of the the person who conceived the child to begin with.

Let's talk about HOW WOMEN GET PREGNANT, b/c I don't think people really understand this issue, until it happens to them.

1. No birth control is 100% effective (other than ovary or uterus removal). Even using 3 types of birth control -- the pill, the condom, and the diaphragm with spermicide -- is not 100% effective. Thus, some women, despite using birth control perfectly, will get pregnant.

2. Some women can't take hormonal birth control, for health reasons. Hormonal birth control is by far the most easy and effective form. So for these women, the chances of getting pregnant, despite their best efforts, are increased.

3. Some women can't use spermicide, due to allergies. Some of these women might be those who can't use hormonal contraception. This subset is even MORE liable to get pregnant, and again, through fault of their own.

4. Some women ovulate multiple times a month. Again, these women are much more likely to get pregnant.

5. Some men have sperm that live for up to SEVEN days inside a women, again, increasing the chances of conception.

6. Some women get raped. ALOT of women get raped.

You look at all these issues...suddenly, it doesn't seem so unfathomable that thousands of women get pregnant, and faultlessly. And they should NOT be punished by having to have children when they are not ready, or by having to give them up for adoption.

And lucky me, I'm in categories 1 through 5.

 

[L O V E L I F E]

Imo, the "a fetus is a human being with rights" argument is a specious one because it implies (by conscious omission) that a fetus has the SAME rights as another viable, already born human being.

I fail to understand why so many people focus on "viability."

Without the help of caring adults, 99-plus percent of one-year olds would quickly die, too.

To me, the question of whether or not we allow abortion comes down to this:

"How selfish do we want to be?"

You brought up animals, and I mentioned them earlier as well.

And to me, fetuses, animals, very young children, and the old and infirm are all "beings" whose ability to continue living depends largely on society's willingness to protect them.

I don't think that morality is black and white and that each ethical question has a clear right answer.

Rather, in most instances, as in this one, I feel the question often becomes:

"Are we willing, as a society, to sacrifice some measure of comfort, convenience, money, enjoyment, and/or some other form of happiness in order to protect animals/fetuses/young children/Grandpa Shlomo?"

And just as I see both sides of the "should we eat meat" argument, I see both sides of this one.

When someone is faced with the decision as to whether or not to abort his/her unwanted so-to-be-child, if that someone chooses to abort, I don't consider that person to be evil.

Rather, I consider that person to have acted selfishly with respect to that one particular decision.

Which is something I have done on many an occasion.

Even though I consider myself to be a rather kind, generous, caring (and viable) human being.

And of all the times I have ever acted selfishly, one thing has rung true each and every time:

I justified to myself that my wants and needs were more important than someone else's.

 

[mariacallas]

The weakness in your "freedom" analogy here is that this just isn't, strictly speaking, a pure "freedom" situation. For your analogy to apply on all fours, the fetus would have to have some means of independently exercising its right to be "free" of the inherently "enslaving" aspects of the prenatal womb. The fetus isn't "free" to choose another host womb if it's dissatisfied with its current host womb or even petition for redress of grievances against it, say, e.g., that it didn't "consent" to the mother's nicotine or caffeine consumption. Nor is the mother "free" to unburden herself of all the decisions that she has to make on the fetus' behalf, or even consider the full range of reproductive options if abortion is significantly restricted.

*pauses for a second to ponder the possibility of movie sequel...BRAD PITT: WOMB RAIDER*

It's simply not a pure "freedom" situation, and to imply that this issue is controlled by a pure "freedom" analysis militating in favor of the fetus is a dangerous implication, for it could (I'm envisioning the following scenario in an amplified version of the present political climate, of course) very easily lead to such slippery slope results intruding even more micromanagerially into the female's life, i.e., the creation of new, even more intrusive State-based "fetal protection" enforcement rights against the putative mother...perversely enough, engendering the very state of control you militate against and endangering the very freedom you ostensibly support.

She had a glass of wine? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT! She smoked a cigarette? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT! She had particularly vigorous sex during the early pregnancy stages? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT!

Sure, those examples are stretched to the extreme, but with the underpinnings of the constitutional right of privacy presently under fire (particularly with respect to reproductive rights) and some on the far right of the political spectrum bemoaning declining American birthrates, it's not hard to imagine some such diluted version of those scenarios in the future ala the Nazi Lebensborn programs.

Given the degree of contentiousness on the issue, until the day comes that we develop technology to process and interpret early fetal brainwaves it's far more desirable imo, and indeed arguably even more protective of the "freedom" you espouse, to maintain the present "viability" bright-line demarcation so that such slippery slope temptations are minimized on either side of the coin.

omg. i love you. I agree 100% with your whole post . *kissy*

 

[mariacallas]

You look at all these issues...suddenly, it doesn't seem so unfathomable that thousands of women get pregnant, and faultlessly. And they should NOT be punished by having to have children when they are not ready, or by having to give them up for adoption.

Yes. I'd also like to point out that most Americans, australians and Europeans dont know hard it is to live in a country that outright does not give a woman the freedom to choose. Abortion and contraception in my country is still BANNED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (although most people I know DO use contraception)...we cannot have public advertisements or endorsements for CONDOMS and the like. Everybody I know who has gotten pregnant at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons have either : a. terminated it in the worst possible way b. Gotten married to escape being shunned and shamed by society C. moved to another country. And those who are below poverty level who cannot afford to do A or C deliver a child they can hardly feed much less care for just contributes to our growing squatter rate in the cities. It is COMMON to see very poor families with 10 or 12 children !

A bit off topic but I just wanted to show everybody else how lucky they are to have this choice available to them.

 

[L O V E L I F E]

It's simply not a pure "freedom" situation, and to imply that this issue is controlled by a pure "freedom" analysis militating in favor of the fetus is a dangerous implication, for it could (I'm envisioning the following scenario in an amplified version of the present political climate, of course) very easily lead to such slippery slope results intruding even more micromanagerially into the female's life, i.e., the creation of new, even more intrusive State-based "fetal protection" enforcement rights against the putative mother...perversely enough, engendering the very state of control you militate against and endangering the very freedom you ostensibly support.

She had a glass of wine? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT! She smoked a cigarette? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT! She had particularly vigorous sex during the early pregnancy stages? HAUL HER INTO REPRODUCTIVE COURT!

First of all, congratulations on the first ever officially recorded usage of "micromanagerially."

I've always loved adverbs; my all-time favorite is Mattingly.

Back to the point, I shall concede that privacy rights ought to militate that sometimes we would be better off as a society not criminalizing certain conduct that, in the absence of privacy issues, we might choose to crimianlize.

After all, how else would anyone without a telescope know what "penumbra" means?

But that still doesn't mean that said non-crimnal-because-sometimes-privacy-rights-trump-other-rights conduct should always be considered to be morally acceptable.

Privacy rights make it very difficult to prosecute someone from smoking crack in front of their children, but does that make smoking crack in front of your children morally acceptable?

If, hypothetically, we could detect every single cracksmokerinfrontofhiskids'er WITHOUT compromising anyone's privacy, would you be against punishing it so we could help deter it?

*pauses for a second to ponder the possibility of movie sequel...BRAD PITT: WOMB RAIDER*"

That's flat-out clever, if not exceedingly gay.

I'm stealing it.

 

[glowbug]

I fail to understand why so many people focus on "viability."

It makes more sense when you view it simply as a fulcrum point where the fetus' rights arguably balance with the mother's rights, rather than any comparison between a prenatal "viable" fetus and a postnatal newborn.

The way I interpret it, that's still not to say that the fetus at that fulcrum point is viable in the sense of any appreciable level of consciousness, but it's the point that you give the fetus the benefit of the doubt in deciding that abortion should no longer be granted upon demand.

To illustrate the point by way of the opposite extreme, if we were to give full credence of action to the "all life is sacred" anti-abortion maxim, given the medical technology that presently exists we could in all likelihood keep a fair number of nonviable fetuses technically "alive" as a body of human cells indefinitely, but of what ultimate worth would those "lives" be, other than to preserve the self-congratulatory half-truth that we're eminently "moral" creatures? At what point, if any, does expending precious resources on "lives" that would never otherwise come to fruition (in any real sense of the word) become an immoral decision rather than a moral one?

As you noted, this is a gray area, and no demarcation will be completely free of all arbitrariness in deciding where to draw the line...but until better prenatal technology develops, splitting the baby with a bright-line rule is still the best way to balance competing interests and "viability" seems to be the least arbitrary of any of the fulcrum points imo.

But that still doesn't mean that said non-crimnal-because-sometimes-privacy-rights-trump-other-rights conduct should always be considered to be morally acceptable.

I doubt anyone posting here would approach the decision to abort so cavalierly...I certainly wouldn't. That's why I would support moving the adoption process forward to the prenatal stages to serve as a fetal clearinghouse of sorts, thereby assisting at least some of those who might otherwise choose abortion during that very stressful period of decision in choosing to carry the fetus to term and give the infant up for adoption.

That said, I still don't think I would go so far as to term a decision to abort as morally unacceptable...that implies the decision is morally indefensible. Morally regrettable perhaps, but not morally unacceptable.

Privacy rights make it very difficult to prosecute someone from smoking crack in front of their children, but does that make smoking crack in front of your children morally acceptable?

I'm not sure...how good is the crack? :D

If, hypothetically, we could detect every single cracksmokerinfrontofhiskids'er WITHOUT compromising anyone's privacy, would you be against punishing it so we could help deter it?

Nope, can't say as I would, at least as long as smoking crack remains a criminal activity in and of itself. I remember a similar "if a crime divining rod existed" hypothetical in crim pro class, and if I recall correctly I couldn't think of any strong objections then either.

That's flat-out clever, if not exceedingly gay.

Admittedly it's a bit more wet and fruity on the surface than my usual style, but the necessary processing of the degrees of separation for its full appreciation lends a dry, understated quality, if I do say so myself. I might also note its versatility...you obtain a similar if somewhat muted result with the simple twist of flipping it over to the original reference (i.e., her bisexuality).

OMG you're right, apparently I'm a gay comedic fashion designer. :D

It's yours as long as I receive footnote credit in your CD insert.

 

[Johnny1]

I love my girls and my husband desperately, but I have no sympathy for myself or for other women who fall pregnant as a result of negligence.

I respect your position, however I should point out that it's based on the assumption that a developing fetus, especially at the early stages, is something of value. Instead of being a clump of cells that cannot think and has no self-awareness, it's given a strange kind of status based on its potential alone. Somehow we associate that clump of cells with ourselves or our own children and ascribe a human nature to it when such nature hasn't actually developed yet.

I also have noticed a pretty large gap between peoples' desire to protect a developing fetus, and the desire to assist a child once it's born. You love your kids, which is great - the most important thing in the world for them - but that's because they're yours. How come a developing fetus who is inside another woman is given sacred status, but once born into need is most often ignored, or even blamed for its situation and resented for existing? While you may not harbor this kind of hypocracy yourself, I think it's very prevalent among people who are anti-abortion, and this to me is what is disgusting, not the destruction of a clump of cells that one day might become a person.

 

[DigitalDuality]

i dropped the "Womb Raider" first and foremost in the lounge a week ago

 

[glowbug]

i dropped the "Womb Raider" first and foremost in the lounge a week ago

Dude, not to burst your bubble but I coined that back in the day using the original flick in reference to Angelina's bi-ness. I just noticed it was even better flipped on Pitt.

I didn't see your Lounge reference, and I don't rip people off without giving them credit.

 

[L O V E L I F E]

I didn't see your Lounge reference, and I don't rip people off without giving them credit.

I can vouch for glowbug.

Each and every time he rips me off, he ALWAYS eventually gives me credit.

 

[Beatlebot]

Sorry but I've heard the term womb raider a million times. None of you are original

Back on topic!

 

[glowbug]

^^Yeah that's right, it's all context! Originality is bullshit! :D

 

[fishinabottle]

Reading how many people her regard "drawing back" or coitus interruptus as a working method for prevention of pregnancies I can only say that abortion is the only way to prevent this part of the population to procreate.

And it´s just natural too.