Banning abortion doesn't make sense to me

[Pedersen]

But we do live in a time where many couples are infertile, and if there were no adoption fees(adoption fees can run from $10,000 to $40,000 dollars), there are 40 couples for each available child.* Why do you think there are so many international adoptions?

And the population of the planet is heading to critical mass. Which is part of why I've chosen never to have children (and have taken appropriate steps to make sure I won't). However, that doesn't change what will affect my wife.

These are the same arguments slave owners used against abolitionists.

Wow... You just compared someone controlling another person for life, allowing rampant abuse of the controlled person, the treating of said person as nothing more than property, all of that to a woman making a choice as to whether or not to allow herself to go through pregnancy. Good comparison. Nice, emotionally charged. Completely without logical value, of course, but who needs that?

A baby is a separate entity from the mother, a car does not become part of the garage because it's parked there. And bread does not become part of the oven it's cooked in. The mother choosing to abort is forcing her decision on another living thing.

Well, since we're going to talk about that, let's talk about people forcing their decisions on other living things, shall we?

Are you a vegan (not a vegetarian, a vegan)? If not, why not? By allowing yourself to consume meat and/or animal products, you are inflicting your choices on other living things. And, very arguably, some of those other living things have as much sentience when they are killed as do a new born baby (possibly even more).

If you're a vegetarian, what about the choices you make regarding the other farm animals? For instance, eggs? You're consuming the would-be babies of another species. What about dairy products? Cows are kept, hooked up to machines, drained of nutrients meant for their own children, and those nutrients are then bottled, curdled, and packed for your consumption.

Ah, but that doesn't matter, since they're other species, right? Then please change your wording to reflect your true intent. As it stands, you are complaining because a person:

choosing to abort is forcing her decision on another living thing.

And, just in case you do decide to change your wording, here's a few more examples that will remain within the species, all of which are examples of parents forcing their choices onto other living beings (their children):

• Parents force children to have bedtimes.
• Parents can (and often do) force their children into the same religion as the parents.
• Parents have been known to let children die when medical treatment would have saved the life of the child, simply because the parents' religious belief denied that medical treatment (and this has happened legally).
• Parents have (at the other extreme) gotten unnecessary medical treatment for their child (how many children are on Ritalin that do not need it?).
• Parents have set up arranged marriages.
• Parents have denied their children the right to see and/or date specific people based on the parents' reasons for doing so.
• Parents have forced their children to put up with a specific babysitter. At times, this choice by the parents has resulted in the death of the child.

All of these are examples of children not having a choice. Some are more extreme than others. All of them affect the quality of life of the child, some positively, some negatively. Some of them amount to legalized murder in the right circumstances.

So, please tell me why the one choice being forced is any worse than any other forced choice, especially one that ends the life?

I'll not address the rest, since the rest is either your own personal experience, or people being upset about the potential reasons for an abortion.

[Norton]

I agree with DesignFox that her argument doesn't apply to slavery, nor would it apply to killing poor and homeless people for the same reason.

My thoughts have always been that if abortion was banned, women do still have a choice if they have a baby or not. Don't have sex.

I don't want children - I really really don't. Don't want to ever be pregnant at all. When I get married in the future I shouldn't consummate my marriage, then? I mean, I'm on BC, but something may go wrong as has happened to women before. So, no sex for me - ever?

[Rapscallion]

These are the same arguments slave owners used against abolitionists.

Really? I've not actually investigated the arguments used in the slavery vs anti-slavery debates way back when, since it was a done deal by the time I was born. Have you a link where such arguments were raised? I'm curious.

*My oldest son just turned 17, he was a product of rape, while I was in a foster home. Everyone around me pressured me to have an abortion, I refused, as my mother had tried to abort me(my twin, not so lucky). When I handed my son over to his parents, who had been trying for 10 years to have their own child, and had been on a waiting list to adopt for over 8 years, something good came from something evil, there was balance, and I was able to heal.

I have to admit that I admire you for that. However, the rapist's genes live on. According to the harshest laws of evolution, he won. I don't mean to say that your son is a potential rapist because of what happened, and I'm glad things turned out fine, but in the Darwinistic world your attacker had a victory.

However, based on your experiences, would you say that means other women shouldn't have the choice you were able to make?

Rapscallion

[BlaqueKatt]

Really? I've not actually investigated the arguments used in the slavery vs anti-slavery debates way back when, since it was a done deal by the time I was born. Have you a link where such arguments were raised?

Found a couple:
Herehttp://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_112.html
here
And even one from the BBC
"Slaves are inferior beings"(fetus' are inferior)
"Slavery would be too difficult to abolish"
"Slavery is acceptable in this culture"
"Slavery is legal"(This is no argument at all - things can be legal and unethical at the same time.)

"Living in slavery is better than starving to death"

In circumstances of extreme poverty, living in slavery may be the least bad available option.

While slavery may be the least bad option for an individual, this doesn't justify slavery, but indicates that action should be taken to provide other better options to individuals.

replace the word "slavery" with abortion-exact same arguments

I have to admit that I admire you for that. However, the rapist's genes live on. According to the harshest laws of evolution, he won.

He was married and already had three kids of his own.

Wow... You just compared someone controlling another person for life, allowing rampant abuse of the controlled person, the treating of said person as nothing more than property, all of that to a woman making a choice as to whether or not to allow herself to go through pregnancy.

I also watched one of my male friends go through a total nervous breakdown because his "girlfriend" mentally abused him and controlled him with "if you don't do what I want I'll kill your unborn baby" He did everything she demanded, she decided she didn't want the baby and aborted. Even after he begged her to have the baby and give it to him. He's still in therapy, that was 10 years ago.

Why does a father have no rights whatsoever? Except the right to pay child support, it's his child as well.

no right to force an abortion if he doesn't want to be a father(but is forced to pay support), and no right to force the birth of a child that is rightly his. It's not just about the mother and baby-there is usually a third person involved(unless it's the second coming).

Are you a vegan (not a vegetarian, a vegan)? If not, why not? By allowing yourself to consume meat and/or animal products, you are inflicting your choices on other living things.

A plant isn't alive? Wow that's news to me.

I don't believe in killing unless a life is in danger*, or someone of sound mind requests to be euthinized(which is why I don't give money to right-to-life, they do not support euthinesia, I may volunteer my time on occasion, but that's to man a booth advocating birth control and adoption over aborting).

*Per certain medical conditions I cannot be a vegetarian/Vegan-thus I am killing because my life is in danger.

So, please tell me why the one choice being forced is any worse than any other forced choice, especially one that ends the life?

are you seriously comparing enforcing a bedtime to ending a life?

[Difdi]

My mother is a past chapter president of the national organization for women. She has a favorite phrase she uses on anti-abortionists. It's quite funny when she says it to a man: "Those who don't want to have abortions shouldn't have them"

[Depot Denizen]

I sense a lot of hostility in some posters. It is a very emotional issue, however, reason and logic can persevere.

I believe that everyone has the right to their own body. If you want to boil it down, I'm pro-choice. I think abortion should be the last resort, after counseling and consultation. Accidents do happen, rape notwithstanding.

[Zyanya]

But we do live in a time where many couples are infertile, and if there were no adoption fees(adoption fees can run from $10,000 to $40,000 dollars), there are 40 couples for each available child.* Why do you think there are so many international adoptions?

This was an argument a doctor gave me for refusing to allow me to be sterilized.

These are the same arguments slave owners used against abolitionists.

No, it isn't. Learn a bit of history. Then a bit of biology.

Start here - http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/004.htm

A baby is a separate entity from the mother, a car does not become part of the garage because it's parked there. And bread does not become part of the oven it's cooked in. The mother choosing to abort is forcing her decision on another living thing.

For someone who claims to have worked in a clinic, your knowledge of human biology is woefully inaccurate.

I can understand aborting for medical reasons, but not because the mother is poor, at that point why don't we just kill off all the poor people? If your argument is "they'll starve, or have poor quality of life"-why don't we kill off the homeless or the disabled, after all, they starve and have "poor quality of life" Just because a baby is unwanted by the woman carrying it doesn't mean it's unwanted by another woman that can't have a child.

The only reason necessary to be allowed to have an abortion is 'I do not want to have a baby'. End of discussion. If I do not want a baby, you do not have the right to force me to have one.

One of my former coworkers had an abortion, and a hysterectomy at age 23 because the doctor ripped her uterus open with the suction tube-she almost bled to death, and wishes she had just kept the baby, she wanted more "just not now, maybe in a year or two."

yeah, um. don't believe you. For starters, this sort of event is so rare as to be newsworthy.

Per certain medical conditions I cannot be a vegetarian/Vegan-thus I am killing because my life is in danger.

Don't believe you there either. There is nothing in meat that you cannot get from vegetarian sources.

Think again about having recreational sex. That may seem awfully cold, but why shouldn't people start taking responsibilty for themselves?

Gee, thank you. I'll be sure to let my husband know he gets to sleep on the couch until I hit menopause.

Finally, if abortion was illegal there would be a higher incidence of infanticide. Either at birth, or accidently when the mother dumps her baby in a dustbin and it dies of exposure.

It is worth noting that instances of SIDS dropped dramatically when abortion was legalized.

[Pedersen]

While slavery may be the least bad option for an individual, this doesn't justify slavery, but indicates that action should be taken to provide other better options to individuals.

Except for one detail, I actually wholly agree with you.

Your solution is to make slaves out of people for at least 9 months out of their lives. You would make one person wholly subservient to another. Specifically, the mother gets to be subservient to the fetus. The mother no longer gets a say in what she will do, she must obey the needs of the fetus. She is now a slave to someone else.

If you want to compare slavery arguments, you might as well compare the rest of it.

The response of "Well, don't have sex" isn't exactly a very fair option. Women who get raped face the possibility of getting pregnant from that encounter.

What about a married couple? Suppose that couple wishes to remain childless. That couple should deprive themselves of the joy of making love, even if they were to take every precaution to prevent pregnancy? After all, accidents happen.

What if the prospective mother will find herself in dire straits because of it? I'll use my wife as an example: She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in her early twenties. The medications she has to take to control this are serious medications. At one point, she was on Vioxx. In order for her to carry a pregnancy to term, she would have to stop pretty well all pain controlling medications for the next 9 months. Sure, she could go as strong as something like Advil, but the arthritis continues to ravage her body for that entire time. She won't die from it, but she will suffer excruciating pain that will involve her hands being twisted in ways that hands were not meant to turn. She will wake up every morning in pain, and spend her days in pain, going to sleep in pain. The only difference will be the quantity of it.

Now, the people who are using the "don't have sex" argument are getting into this couple's bedroom and telling them that they can't do this. Who is making a choice for the others now?

Why does a father have no rights whatsoever? Except the right to pay child support, it's his child as well.

Why doesn't a prospective mother have rights to force a man to donate his sperm?

Until such time as it actually can survive outside the womb, it's part of the woman's body. You might not want to call it that, but it is. It is no different than a kidney in that regard. Remove the organ, it dies. Same for the fetus.

As such, that choice has to belong to the woman, and the woman alone. Why doesn't the father get to choose to abort? Well, bluntly put, he made the choice to have unprotected sex (yes, it's possible for female on male rape to occur which will result in the female getting pregnant, but that's extremely difficult to do. We can pursue that topic further if you'd like). As such, he's already made a choice to accept the risk of her getting pregnant.

Finally, assume he thought she was using the pill: I firmly believe that, if he can prove that the pregnancy was planned without his knowledge or consent that he should be able to sever all parental rights and obligations, and require her to deal with the consequences.

A plant isn't alive? Wow that's news to me.

I chose to exclude plants deliberately, since, unless you're Zhaan (or another Delvian), you're not very likely to worry about eating plants. They don't move, they don't look cute at all, and have a very hard time engendering feelings in people that they directly trace to a specific plant.

Of course, you're free to try to poke holes in my argument by noting that I left plants out. But that's rather much a straw man, don't you think?

*Per certain medical conditions I cannot be a vegetarian/Vegan-thus I am killing because my life is in danger.

So, now we have some added insight: You are okay with enforcing an unborn fetus right to live for the same reason you should be allowed to live. Neither of you can live without forcibly taking nutrients from others that could result in severe damage to the other, even death. But that's okay, because your life will be preserved.

are you seriously comparing enforcing a bedtime to ending a life?

Nice one again! Nice, emotionally charged, and, for added benefit, takes a quote out of context. Maybe the rest of the quote should have been added in again, especially since I was actually showing how society was willing to allow certain choices to be forced on people who are incapable of defending against those choices, and then asking you why that was okay, but the choice for an abortion was not.

So, I have to give you credit. Without actually answering a couple of those questions, you managed to paint me with a rather negative brush. I'm impressed. But, maybe this time, you can answer those questions, please?

yeah, um. don't believe you. For starters, this sort of event is so rare as to be newsworthy.

The fact that you have not heard of it does not mean that it didn't happen.

Don't believe you there either. There is nothing in meat that you cannot get from vegetarian sources.

If that's the case, then why are cats unable to subsist on a purely vegetarian diet? They need the taurine, which only comes from meat. Entirely possible that people need it too (for one example). Another example is proteins that people need but are unable to get in sufficient quantities from a vegetarian/vegan diet.

The fact that you are unaware of such conditions speaks more poorly of you than it does of BlaqueKatt.

[DesignFox]

Won't work. If (God forbid) abortion got banned, women would still find a way to get one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7500237.stm

Interesting link Amethyst. Lots to think about there.

Mostly, it is disturbing because some of these places can be highly irreputable. The one site seems like the medication is legit and safe, but only used appropriately- which we all know, not everyone will have the knowledge to use it safely or even use it as instructed.

Back-alley abortions are frightening. It is scary in and of itself that these women feel so hopeless that they turn to mutilation because they feel they have no other option.

[Zyanya]

The fact that you have not heard of it does not mean that it didn't happen.

Multiple rare, unheard of things in a single post? Given this poster's history of personal experience with rare, almost unheard of things? Uh-huh.

Guess what? The type of surgery she listed is far safer than childbirth.

The fact that you are unaware of such conditions speaks more poorly of you than it does of BlaqueKatt.

Humans are not cats.

But if you can actually name the condition, go right ahead. I'm waiting.

Another example is proteins that people need but are unable to get in sufficient quantities from a vegetarian/vegan diet.

And yet many vegetarians and vegans do just fine. Seems that if there was some mystical protein found only in flesh that humans needed, several entire cultures would have gone extinct. Sorry, but her post tripped my BS meter.

[Rapscallion]

Found a couple:
Herehttp://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_112.html
here
And even one from the BBC
"Slaves are inferior beings"(fetus' are inferior)
"Slavery would be too difficult to abolish"
"Slavery is acceptable in this culture"
"Slavery is legal"(This is no argument at all - things can be legal and unethical at the same time.)

Thanks - I'd not been aware of some of the arguments.

Out of interest, why compare it to slavery? I can see the link in the style of arguments used, but at that point it becomes a way to garner emotion to the user's side. Just because one thing is generally accepted as wrong doesn't mean to say that another for which the arguments are similar is wrong.

To put it another way, the arguments for owning guns could be compared to the arguments for owning slaves in the same fashion. There are quite a number of people on here who would argue until their typing fingers are eroded away to defend their right to own a gun.

I don't accept the argument of comparing it to slavery. Interesting information, though.

He was married and already had three kids of his own.

His genes spread even further, then. I don't condone what he did, and I hope he paid heavily in jail, but in evolutionary terms he's a winner.

Rapscallion

[Pedersen]

Humans are not cats.

They're not? Damn, there goes that theory. Thanks for clarifying.

You're right, I used them as an example, and inappropriately.

But if you can actually name the condition, go right ahead. I'm waiting.

B12 deficiency. You can not get B12 from plants, period. Requires dairy, eggs, or meat.

That's for starters. Protein, iron, calcium, and zinc are other proteins which you must plan for adequately. These are difficult to get sufficient quantities of on a vegetarian diet. Not impossible, to be sure, but definitely more difficult.

Depending on your specific allergies and physiological makeup, you may have a harder time digesting foods in a purely vegetarian/vegan diet, thus resulting in your having a harder time maintaining a degree of health.

So, yes, some conditions will require a non-vegetarian diet.

Common? No. But they do exist.

[Zyanya]

That's for starters. Protein, iron, calcium, and zinc are other proteins which you must plan for adequately. These are difficult to get sufficient quantities of on a vegetarian diet. Not impossible, to be sure, but definitely more difficult.

No, not really.

http://www.nutritionadvocate.com/sto...akthrough.html

It's not hard to live on a vegan diet. Many manage it and remain quite healthier, even healthier than many omnivores.



But when someone says they had a child by rape (an incredible statistical rarity), worked in a CPC so knows all about abortion (but still has many of the facts wrong), knows someone who had a hysterectomy due to an abortion (an incredible statistical rarity), has some sort of strange condition that prevents her from living on vegetation (pretty much a statistical impossibility) and is trying to use all this supposed anecdotal evidence to make claims for abortion being wrong?

It has not escaped me that many forced-birthers claim to have worked in clinics and thus seen all the 'heartache abortion causes'. In fact, the reason so many make this claim is because forced-birthers are encouraged to make this claim in an attempt to lend false authority to their arguments.

[Rapscallion]

I would think that working in such places is farily traumatic and some people have to leave because they can't deal with it. Some will turn to campaigning against it, and probably more than the number of campaigners from people from other walks of life. I suspect that accounts for some of the apparent number of people who say they have worked there.

I wouldn't like to suspect people of lying without proof of it.

Rapscallion

[Zyanya]

I would think that working in such places is farily traumatic and some people have to leave because they can't deal with it. Some will turn to campaigning against it, and probably more than the number of campaigners from people from other walks of life. I suspect that accounts for some of the apparent number of people who say they have worked there.

But people who have actually worked at a clinic know the difference between a CPC and a clinic.