The Abortion Showdown

I agree 100% too

I think the meaning is that... why should i have a say or vote on something that i have no right saying or voting in. Government should have no right to step into these private matters... what next??? only allowed to have a certain amount of children? are not allowed to have children unless we qualify?... sure.. some may say.. but it's wrong to have government and personal rights mixed.. much like religion and government mixed.

 

This last part of your post really highlights the reason why this is becomming such a big issue. I think a huge majority of people feel this way. I know I do. I don't think I would ever support my wife getting an abortion if she were to get pregnant (her ultimate choice though). I also don't think it's my right to tell another person what they should do in the same situation. In essence I am reserved with the issue, I don't really feel passionate about it one way or the other. The right to life crew feels on a fundamental religeous level that an abortion, in any trimester, is killing a baby. They think that God feels this way as well. If you combine those two things with a fundamentalist belief in the bible you, at the very least, get an extremely strong and passionate belief that abortions are wrong. Take a small group who believes strongly that something is wrong and on the other side, a majority of people that don't really know how they feel about that thing and you get a lot of airtime and a showdown on the state and federal level. Interesting to say the very least.

You say later that you can't understand why these same people don't believe in sex education and birth control. I think in general that right to lifers have a pretty puritan view of the world. Like we can force America to return to the 50's or something. I agree, it makes no sense. Jimmy Carter talks about these same things in his latest book (Our Endangered Values). I feel fine about these people having their views on this and even talking openly about them. I do have a problem with these people conforming my reality into a shape of their liking.

Whoa. That was one heck of a soapbox monologue. Sorry to ramble.

 

Actually, the rambling was well thought out and very insightful. I enjoyed reading the comments, and agree with you.

You bring up something about the issue that has always bothered me. The people that oppose abortion on a fundamental religious level believe that abortion should be banned because, as you state, they believe God is opposed to abortion. That is a religious view, and borders on imposing religious beliefs on the rest of the population... whether they share the same religious beliefs or not. There are plenty of people in this nation that are religious who don't have a moral problem with abortion... many of those are Christian. So, one can't assert that all Christians (or all people that believe in God) are anti-abortion. Banning abortion because it is against "God's" law is less of a justification than pretty much anything else, because our country's system of law just doesn't work that way. In South Dakota, they assembled testimony from people citing a fetus' ability to feel pain, and the mental/emotional damage done to a woman that undergoes the procedure. While I don't personally believe this to be relevant, it is more relevant than a religious argument.

As for the puritanical belief that America should return to the way it was in the 50's, when nobody ever had an abortion, nobody ever had sex before marriage, and life was perfect... Hate to break it to the anti-abortion brigade, but abortions have happened for thousands of years... it isn't a new invention. Abortions were legal at the time the Constitution was written, and were both commonly performed and openly advertised. In fact, a pre-quickening abortion was considered one done within the first 15 to 18 weeks of the pregnancy. In 1821, Connecticut was the first state to make post-quickening abortion illegal. Bear in mind that post-quickening is around four and a half to five months or so into the pregnancy. Abortion in the first 18 weeks was still completely legal. This shows that our forefathers certainly understood what an abortion was, and understood the concept of when a fetus achieves a measure of viability. Had our forefathers been anti-abortion, they probably would have specifically banned abortion in the constitution. Of course, they were all men, and I believe men probably aren't fully entitled to have an opinion here!

Glad you liked Carter's book... I thought his insight on the history of the North Korea nuclear issue were especially enlightening. If anyone wants a good read, please pick up "Our Endangered Values" by former president Jimmy Carter.

Dan

 

My girlfriend's family, especially her sister's family, is about as born-again as people can get. They are not just Christian, they are crazy Christian. Every letter to my girlfriend is littered all over with various "Jesus loves you" statements in big letters. They not only pray before all meals, they pray standing up, holding hands, in long, flowery, melodramatic praises to "Father God," and they force guests to join them in it, oblivious to how rude that is. Anything Jesus, they have it, and they love it. They have presents to and from Jesus under the Christmas tree, the kids are listening to Christian rap music or something with their walkmans and they have poems they wrote for Jesus posted on the doors to their rooms. For the sake of social harmony, I try to think of it as harmless, like people who are a little too much into Klingons or elves or something. And they are good people, even if their church or cult or whatever sometimes leads them to participate in hateful political activities--they just don't know any better.

But I know a secret. I know the secret. The family secret. The super-religious freak who is my girlfriend's sister, this person who is so extreme as to believe that as a woman, she should be subservient in all things to her husband because that's what she believes the Bible tells her, she is not so sweet and innocent as she appears. Having been raised Catholic, she was always religious and she was always of the mind that abortion was in violation of her religion. But in her youth she had a wild streak or something, and while in college she ended up getting pregnant (after all, a lot of religious people aren't given a proper sex education), and she had an abortion. I mean, it's easy to understand why should wouldn't want to destroy her career in order to bring an unwanted child into the world. But it's just so freaking convenient how some people who love to harp on the private reproductive choices of other people, can overlook the question of abortion when an unwanted pregnancy happens to them or to their own daughter, but then get right back up on the pulpit of screaming about hellfire and trying to tell other people how to live their own lives.

 

I work in a family planning program, we do not provide abortions, but do refer our patients out for abortions. I can tell you first hand that in the 13+ years I have worked there I have never seen a patient who has made the choice to terminate the pregnancy make that decision lightly, this includes adults as well as teens. On the other hand, there are plenty of patients who decide to continue the pregnancy that give many of us pause.

I don't believe life is cheap, nor do I believe that our patients who choose abortion believe life is cheap.

 

I can't understand the fervor of pro-lifers at protests or outside clinics, screaming and the graphic signs, etc. It always strikes me as hypocritical to be so "devoted to life and the unborn child", yet in this world how many children are suffering due to poverty, no medical care, abuse, crappy foster system, etc. etc.

I don't see anyone standing outside the state house screaming for these children. Not even a whisper.

 

I can see it now. A national chain of Planned Parenthood/NARAL abortion clinic/overnight recovery centers – complete with complimentary shuttle rides to and from the nearest Greyhound bus stations.

I'll donate! But can I designate exactly the type of person I wish the abortion to be preformed on? [just kidding . . . but those ethical questions have also been raised. Is providing free abortions to the poor a form of discrimination?]

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I'm just glad I'll be getting 50 mpg when I volunteer to drive someone to New York and back!

 

I'm personally against abortion...BUT I'm even more against the government having control over one's personal choices.

Abortion should be legal for the sole reason that if it weren't, there wouldn't be clinics. Abortions would still happen, just in back-alley clinics and unsavory doctor's office instead of clean and safe clinics. And that's just bad news bears, Batman.

 

You haven't been there, you haven't seen what I've seen, you haven't spoken with these women. Walk a mile in my shoes, better yet, walk a mile in their shoes.

 

Amen.

 

Wow... that is kind of scathing, isn't it? I've known people that have made that decision, and being selfish doesn't generally come into it.

Having/raising children requires a financial commitment, and requires that the parent be able to support the family. In many cases, having an 'unexpected' child early in life prevents a parent from continuing school, and puts them in a hole they'll never be able to recover from. How can a person raise a family and support a child with no education or future? As a society, we certainly don't give single mothers the type of support needed to raise families (I know a few single Moms... they have it pretty rough). Personally, I find it very selfless when you are able to recognize that you aren't in a position to support a child. Selfishness doesn't seem to work into that equation.

Let's look at another scenario. A couple approaching the end of their second tri-mester discovers that the child they're carrying has a severe birth defect, and will likely never be able to lift it's head on it's own, speak, think, or function at all in anything but a severely vegetative state. The child would likely be institutionalized for life. The couple decides to abort the pregnancy, not because they don't want or love the child, but because it doesn't seem fair to the child to bring him into the world in that condition, doesn't seem fair to the other children in the family, and on society overall to present this burden.

It seems that in general, the decision about whether or not to have an abortion is reached after careful consideration and thought. To call that decision selfish is mean-spirited and cruel.

 

Oh my God! Just a few posts ago, you ranted about how society feels that life is cheap, and now you're saying that we can't worry about the lives of women who will be forced to pursue back-alley abortions?

Do you have any idea how hypocritical your statements are?

Wait, are you a troll? Should I not be feeding you? :lol:

 

Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when the lawyers for people with exceptionally screwed up birth defects sue the anti-abortion groups that contributed to blocking the abortion thereof, to cover lifetime medical costs. After all, only the religious wackos that birthed these monstrosities into the world through their twisted politics should have to pay for them, not the average taxpayer. (And religious extremists should have no need for personal wealth anyhow.)

 

In other words, if you are upper middle class or above, and can afford an impromptu international vacation, you may have an abortion. If you are working class, no abortions for you!

 

Can we please get beck to Prii. Moderators?

 

This is so true. You have all these right to lifers who want to abolish abortions but do not support spending for education, food stamps and low cost housing. Do you want these women and their children to suffer?
I am a single parent. I did not choose abortion, I love my daughter. It was a decision I made for myself. As I have said before, there should be guidelines in abortion. Time limits, counseling, choices. But no one can make this decision for another.
Until you have experienced a pregnancy you cannot tell another person that they must stay pregnant. The toll on the woman's body can be severe.

 

It's been said that for an anti-abortion religious fundamentalist, life begins at conception and ends at birth.