Abortion what do you think of it?

[i_love_burritos]

Abortion is clearly someone's own choice, and should be kept that way.

 

Face it, if you had barely enough money to look after yourself and you have 6+ children and a husband/wife, would you abort some of them, or still keep them all?

 

I lol'd.

 

Sonic, it's not like -- "pop", they come out of the ahem, and then 2 or 3 years later you just want to "abort" them.

 

But I guess that's what has happenend in China ...

[Iamdan]

You are hardwired to stop working if you're tired, because in a natural situation, humans should live an active enough lifestyle that they are in shape, and get more than enough exercise regularly. You are hardwired to enjoy sugar, fat, and meat, because these provide the most nutrients, which your body thirsts for. Your body is hardwired to do a lot of things. That is not an excuse. Humans have transcended nature's limitations upon them, to the point where we have placed a constraint upon evolution. Our bodies no longer know what's best for us, so what the body tells us to do is by no means an argument for doing them.

 

our hardwiring has enough internal conflict with our culture as it is.

 

Funnily enough, the examples you gave wouldn't be issues if we didn't have so many people.

[meol]

This is one of the few topics where I have a more conservative view. There just are other alternatives to an abortion that don't imply ending a life, like a broader and better access to sex education and contraceptives, a better safety net for young/poor parents.

 

Even so, I still couldn't reconcile with the idea of having a woman who aborted go to jail. Having an abortion on itself is already traumatic for most people, and I'm not too keen on the idea of punishing them even more.

 

I'd guess abortions in other serious cases like rape are just necessary evils that should be heavily controlled and restricted.

[pokemama]

[hide=some points from blue]

... I like to call this the anti-coat hanger stance. ...

... basically a death sentence to the mother and the fetus, since the maternal death generally happens long before the fetus is viable...

...every organ in the abdominal cavity is pushed around and squeezed together. The compression on the bladder causes one of the better known complaints of pregnant women: the need to pee much more frequently. Compression on other organs and vessels can cause other symptoms: heartburn and constipation (GI tract), varicose veins and swelling in the legs (vena cava), and renal hypertension (kidneys and the renal arteries)...

... Also during pregnancy, blood pressure frequently rises, due to increased blood volume and and heart rate in order to supply the fetus ...

... But then consider that many prescription medications can't be taken during pregnancy. Suddenly, any well-managed conditions you have become a lot less well managed. Not only is your body going wacko, you're off your meds. That high blood pressure you inherited? I hope you like your bed, because you're probably going to be stuck in it most of the time by the third trimester, doctor's orders...

...Others, like preeclampsia sneak up on you, and if it's not properly treated (by which I mean delivering the baby ASAP or aborting it), both mother and fetus can die...

... We don't have the current technology to transfer an already-implanted blastocyst into another womb, which leaves abortion as the only option...

 

tl;dr version: I'm pro-choice.

[/hide]

 

I'll start at the top with I'm pro-choice. CHAUCER even wrote that a woman wanted to choose what happened in their own lives, back before 1400!

 

Everything Blue said regarding medical effects is 100% correct. There's some things in addition: gestational diabetes, LEACHING calcium from the mother's bones, permanent bladder control problems, permanent effects on your teeth, your feet, your immune system (I know a woman who became allergic to every known antibiotic, so that the next infection she got might kill her), and even your brain (post-partum depression can lead to major depression, which affects the rest of the mother's life.)

 

Regarding having sex - why are we only yelling about girls doing it? Why aren't we blaming the boys who consistently pursue it, getting a girl to "give in", blah blah blah? The fact is that our society (and I mean specifically television and movies - I'm not a freak about them but believe me this has CHANGED) has made sex a "common" thing rather than a "postpone it" thing. As a kid I just didn't SEE women having sex all the time. And today's movies show plenty of sex, but STILL don't show people using birth control, due to fear of the "birth begins at conception" protesters.

 

SOME girls with low self-esteem use sex as a way to get attention, to "make" a boy love them. >.< It's incredibly sad, and doomed to failure, but it's true. Of course, it ends up *decreasing* their self-esteem. They are not respecting themselves, so no one else will respect them either.

 

Frighteningly, girls are maturing earlier and earlier. A hundred years ago, a girl began menstruating at 17-18. In the 1970's, 12- 14. Now we have NINE YEAR OLDS that are fertile, ffs!! I've no idea what's causing this - hormones in our milk? I'm not an organic freak, but we need to figure out WHY this is happening.

 

And we dress our girls, even small children, like hookers and think it's "cute".

 

Regarding abortion. Again let me state clearly that I am pro-choice. Nobody knows what a woman's life is really like, except her. When it officially became legal (Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, 1972 or thereabouts?), I have to say that I think too many women chose it. It seemed like a simple and intellectual alternative. Most of those women have come to regret it later in life, with horrible burdens of guilt. But back then, the stigma of an unmarried mother was a SERIOUS thing. She was kicked out of school and hidden away by her family, sometimes sent out of town to a relative. Today, we are far more tolerant of teenage girls carrying to term. "At least she didn't have an abortion." Girlfriends have always felt the need to try to "talk her out of it" if a girl says she will abort. I do not know what the numbers or percentages of abortions are not ... but I know that the STIGMA is not as widespread.

 

Regarding adoption, that doesn't always work out well. Think about it - not all girls giving up babies are white girls coming from a "good home" that simply made a mistake. A lot of them come from poor homes, with inherited but invisible tendencies toward alcholism, drug abuse, and mental illness, as well as the accompanying brain development illnesses that ride on the same genes. Not to mention minority infants who are very difficult to place. The conflict in the home of ANY troubled/addicted teenager is PURE HELL, and the children and parents often hate each other during that time - but it can be worse when complicated by the "you're not my mom" and "oh my god my own child couldn't have been this way." Birth mothers using cocaine or other drugs make things a thousand times worse - the permanent damage to the child's nervous system just doesn't show right away. Imagine an adopted child that screams 24 hours a day, that can't bear to be touched, that has dozens of permanent brain problems. Yeah, I've seen it.

 

Viable fetuses - also a tough one. Due to pregnancy problems, babies are being delivered earlier and earlier. Little tiny 1.0 to 1.5 pound babies with unfinished lungs and other problems. Although we are now able to save these children, many of them will have epilepsy, permanent brain damage, crippling, and other issues that will seriously affect their quality of life. I'm not saying we should kill these children - I'm just saying it's something to think about.

 

I reluctantly admit that we might need to look harder at guidelines for what term abortions should go up to. Now that fetuses ARE viable in the 2nd term (that's 3-6 months along) rather than the third (6-9 months), it seems a fact that the mother should consider. Perhaps development info SHOULD be presented so that girls know, and right-to-lifers are already doing this. At my Very Much Desired son's 9 or 11 week ultrasound - his heart was already beating. :o I had no idea that would happen so soon. I don't know what the abortion time limit is now - but back in the day they would not perform an abortion until the pregnancy was 6 weeks along (no idea why). Which gives a tight window depending on how far along you choose to define a life vs. a parasite.

 

Finally - you guys probably know that some states are beginning to seriously legislate against abortion. It alarms pro-choicers because ... if you give them an inch, they take a yard. Roe v. Wade went to the Supreme Court and applied to ALL states. What will happen from state to state ... is worrying.

[Soma2035]

Regarding having sex - why are we only yelling about girls doing it? Why aren't we blaming the boys who consistently pursue it, getting a girl to "give in", blah blah blah? The fact is that our society (and I mean specifically television and movies - I'm not a freak about them but believe me this has CHANGED) has made sex a "common" thing rather than a "postpone it" thing. As a kid I just didn't SEE women having sex all the time. And today's movies show plenty of sex, but STILL don't show people using birth control, due to fear of the "birth begins at conception" protesters.

 

SOME girls with low self-esteem use sex as a way to get attention, to "make" a boy love them. >.< It's incredibly sad, and doomed to failure, but it's true. Of course, it ends up *decreasing* their self-esteem. They are not respecting themselves, so no one else will respect them either.

 

Frighteningly, girls are maturing earlier and earlier. A hundred years ago, a girl began menstruating at 17-18. In the 1970's, 12- 14. Now we have NINE YEAR OLDS that are fertile, ffs!! I've no idea what's causing this - hormones in our milk? I'm not an organic freak, but we need to figure out WHY this is happening.

 

And we dress our girls, even small children, like hookers and think it's "cute".

 

I'm pretty sure girls have always hit puberty at younger ages. At least, I was under the impression that in older societies women were married off at young ages BECAUSE they were fertile at that age. Also, it's worth noting that the youngest recorded mother gave birth at age 5, not 9.

 

I find it every bit as deplorable for a young male to act on his hormones and seek sexual relationships when they are in no way prepared to care for a child. The father should be as responsible as the mother for caring for the child. It usually takes two poor decisions to conceive a child, not one. Even in cases of rape, more often than not, the victim chose to put him or herself into a dangerous position...

 

Anyhow, I've always found that abortion is one of those subjects not quite worth discussing. Unless someone is severely, severely misinformed for NON religious reasons, it's very difficult to convince anyone to change their beliefs on the matter.