The big abortion rant thread.

But the things you mention in that line are failings of all involved, not just the parents. Government should have certain programs in place top help struggling families. Extended family, where available, should be available to help on whatever level they can (especially the emotional level). Make no mistake, raising a child is not an easy task, but when others around find a way to help out, it makes it a little easier. It falls to those around to help lighten the load where they can...

This begs another question now when dealing with abortion: How far does the fault for the death of the child spread? Certainly if family members or friends estrange themselves from the would be mother, they must have some accountability for the consequences of the decision. What portion of the blame for child poverty lies at the feet of Government or the economic conditions in general? If these conditions are not properly addressed, does this failure take some of the blame for the abortion? How much blame is to be assigned to a man who impregnates a woman then abandons her?

 

Gee, the first 15 replies or so were so civil -- what happened?

My first main problem is that if a person wants an abortion they should pay for it themselves. If it is truly a private matter then it should be done privately, without public funds. I'm willing to concede that the decisions a person makes, whether I agree with them or not, whether I find them moral or not, are theirs to make and not mine. However, once a person wishes to access public funds, funds to which I have contributed, then I as a contributor have a right to a say in how those funds are allocated -- ergo, it becomes my business.

Now we all know that abortions of one sort or another have been perfromed throughout the ages. I shudder at the thought of a scared, lonely teenage girl heading off to the back alley for some ding-dong whose only medical trainging is an anatomy book from the 1960s to try to perform an abortion on her. She'll likely get killed as well. I don't want to see that. But what I DO want to see is her take responsibility for her own decisions (I'm assuming in my hypothetical that the child is the result of consensual sex) and pay for it herself. Lots of NGOs out there would be willing to take donations from people who whole-heartedly believe in abortion and lots of doctors who would perform the abortion pro bono. No need to involve my tax dollars -- and if you do, I have every right regardless of my gender or relative wealth, to say something about it.

I have a few other thoughts that I will axpress later -however, few people have answered my original question - -in your country (or another country with which you are very familiar) is abortion legal? And how readily available is it? Also, in the States (a country without a state run medical plan, IIRC) how much does an abortion run?

 

No offense, but this is needlessly insulting and patently absurd. If you look at the pro-life community as a caricature in which men (and a few misguided women) who've never "been there" force their will upon women, you'll never get through to them. Albeit by the narrowest of margins, more women (many of whom, like my wife, have "been there") than men are pro-life, so even if women set policy, the net result would be the same. Your essential argument appears to be that only women who've "been there" should be dictating policy. Has it occurred to you that many women have "been there" and made a different choice than you did? The last time I checked, the pro-life community had nothing against adoption, so they aren't interested in forcing you to raise the child in poverty. If you choose to adopt, there are even organizations (both religious and secular) that will be more than willing to help you financially, with counseling, and with representation throughout every step of the process.

While I, myself, feel that many pro-life arguments are somewhat misguided and also feel that abortion should be safe and legal for the first trimester, I'm at least able to understand where the pro-life argument is coming from. People who are pro-life aren't actually against your right to choose. Rather, they feel that the right of the child to not have its existence terminated without consent supersedes your right to choose, just as your right to swing your fist ends before it connects with someone else's mouth. An abortion doesn't just affect you. It also affects the life growing inside you. Regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue, to refuse to acknowledge that simple fact is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

 

Are you for real? Sex is probably the 2nd to last thing I'd ever give up - closely followed by oxygen. No offence but if a person is going to live a life of abstinence simply because they don't want children, they may as well become a monk. It's denying a natural carnal urge. You're being absolutely ridiculous, if I may say.

 

I have to say that i don't have a firm stance on the issue as i see valid points on both sides of the debate. What Silvery & others have had to do & live with is a terrible thing but if you have any empathy, you can understand how they came to that decision.

Here in the states 1st trimesterabortions run about $300-$600 while 2nd trimester abortions are anywhere between $500 -$5000.

For some reason in high school i was like a bartender - everybody came to me with there problems or if they just wanted to get something off their chest.
I helped 3 girls set-up their appointments & drove them to the clinic for their abortions & it was a very hard thing on all of them. For the next couple of days they just want somebody who will listen to them without passing judgement. No matter where you stand on the issue, just remember that these women have went through enough without some jerk screaming obscenities at them.

 

Obscenities, like a raving pro-life picket prick or prickette calling them murderers.

 

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So what you are saying is that ovaries are somehow a requirement to determine whether or not aborting a fetus violates its rights? That doesn't seem just the slightest bit silly to you? Those women who have been pregnant may draw from a greater wealth of experience* when choosing their stance on abortion, but that extra experience appears to work against you, since women are slightly more likely than men to be pro-life.

If experience of that type were so utterly essential, only doctors who've had cancer should be allowed to administer chemotherapy, only psychiatrists with paranoid schizophrenia should be allowed to treat patients with paranoid schizophrenia, and only criminals should be defense attorneys (contrary to popular belief, not all defense attorneys are criminals).

* which is not to be confused with actual knowledge.

 

I remember a psychiatrist I was seeing once said that he was totally underqualified for his job because he'd never had a mental health problem

BTW.....sorry about last nights comments. I was very drunk and in a stinking mood over something that was so unimportant, I can't actually remember what it was! lol

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Heh heh, I actually quite like Jack!

 

That's exactly why I can't defend abortion. But realistically, can I actually stop one? The best I can hope for is to make the decision to bring the child into this world easier on the mother. I think that "pro-life", while morally right, will be ineffective. Perhaps the movement should be "Choose Life"...

Yes, I am serious. You can take all the precautions in the world and likely get away with it, but if you're going to have sex, you damned well better be ready in case the precautions fail and you're firing live rounds. And judging by what has been said here by two people who've had abortions, there is NO easy solution (I just said Abstinence was effective, I never said it was easy).

The problem is this: What if the person wants the abortion but can't or won't pay for it? Do they then seek out an unlicenced provider? Do they try to do it themselves? These are the things that legalized abortion are trying to prevent. I don't like it, but I understand it. But there comes a point where once the decision is made to terminate the child, we CANNOT help them deal with the consequences of their action.

That's why those that want to protect the life of the unborn child need to do more than stand on a soap box and preach. They need to step up, pitch in and help out! They need to make the alternatives to abortion easier to choose than the abortion. You can preach santity of life until you're blue in the face but unless you're willing to help the person out, you may be amplifying the problems that are there in the first place.

Actually, if you were vomitting for nine months consecutively, that would qualify as an elevated risk to your life above and beyond any associated with normal pregnancy.

 

Drew stated one of my thoughts quite eloquently. Just because men have never "been there" does not automatically disqualify them from having a valid opinion of a topic.

And here's why I have a problem with that kind of logic. Let's take a hypothetical. There's a boy named Barry and a girl named Giselle (note the "B" and "G" usage.) They have a fun, mutually consensual relationship and then one day their form of birth control fails. 2 scenarios:

1: Barry wants her to have an abortion. He doesn't feel ready to be a father, is really in no financial position to be a father, and is also not ready to move in with Giselle. He offers to pay for her abortion. Giselle pitches a fit and refuses, telling him that he is 'only a man and couldn't possibly understand what it feels like to have a life growing inside your body'. Barry then asks her to consider adoption, because of the reasons outlined above, and again, she tells him 'you're a man, and can't possibly know the joy of bonding with a baby inside you. I'm keeping the baby no matter what you say, and you are now on the hook for the next 18 years for child support.' Under Canadian law, anyhow, there is nothing Barry can really do. He is at heart a decent person and will pay his child support, even though that permanently impacts his future.

2: Barry wants to keep the child. Giselle wants an abortion. Barry begs her to keep the baby, to give it to him and he'll raise it alone, even, if she wants nothing to do with it. Giselle tells him 'you're a man, and you can't possibly understand what it is like to have a life inside you.' She derides him for daring to tell her what to do with her body. She mocks him brutally because HE isn't the one who will have to go through childbirth. Under Canadian law, there is nothing he can do really -- I suppose he could try to file a court injunction but he would be pilloried by the pro-choice movement in the press. And he'd most likely lose.

In both cases, polar opposites, the man is ALWAYS wrong for daring to disagree with a female on an issue that is, in my opinion, BOTH of their business. I am not saying that he should be the only one with the right to make the decision without regard for what Giselle thinks, but there should be some recognition of his rights, some legal protection for someone who has a stake in the matter too. In previous centuries, men were able to make all of such decisions, and that was wrong, absolutely. But the pendulum has swung the other way now and it is just as wrong now for the women to make all the decisions in these matters. There must be some kind of balance and we've got to expect people to be rational, fair, and law abiding.

 

I think that the problem Giselle would have there would be carrying the child for 9 months and then giving it up. Plus, having a child growing inside you can feel kinda intrusive to begin with. It's very hard to explain. Not just hard to explain to men but to anybody who hasn't felt it.

And no, I'm not saying men don't have a clue

 

I despise the fact that a man has no right to the child inside of the females body, surely law should also help men, ignorance is no excise in the eyes of the law, she knew that she could become pregnant if she had sex, the man should have rights

 

Hang on babes, I didn't say that the man didn't have a right to the child. I was just trying to say that Giselle may have a problem giving up the child totally!

Chill your knickers! lol

 

I see your point. I am a father of three children now, and I've seen the hell my wife went through with three pregnancies; I've seen the effects on her body and her emotional state, with all the hormones raging and the other chemical and behavioral changes that happen when one actually has a baby growing inside; the pain from having all her internal organs pushed and kicked around inside her body (the baby has to have room to grow somewhere inside there). The day men can get pregnant, is the day some of them will start singing a new tune. Men are often complaining about their "rights." It's too bad women can't just transfer all the pain and misery to them, and say: "Ok, here you go, have fun!"

 

Chandos, hold up a second - -are you saying that men who claim to have rights are making a specious argument? Certainly our western society claims (quite rightly) that once the baby is born, the man has responsibilities. Do not rights and responsibilities go hand in hand? In a genetic sense, although the woman does make the greater sacrifice of time, energy, and health, the baby is just as much the man's progeny as the woman's, correct?

Let me reiterate, I do not believe that men should have the sole voice in these matters, but the idea that they should be voiceless is patently absurd. And just because someone hasn't experienced something does not negate their right to have an opinion or position on a topic. As was mentioned earlier, all of us would have no problem stating that we believe vigilante behaviour to be wrong, even though most of us haven't lost a family member to crime. Not having experienced that particular trauma in no way invalidates the logic of that position against vigilante justice. Despite Silvery's assertion to the contrary, the same logic applies here.

 

Yep, "once the baby is born" they have all kinds of rights to go along with the responsibilities. I'm agruing against the notion that the woman doesn't have rights to decide about how her body should be "used." First, you've have guys on here complaining that a fetus trumps the rights of the woman; Second, now there is suddenly a notion that the guy has rights to what's inside her body. That's a crock, and you know it, LkD. Once the baby is born, the guy should have equal rights. The point is, it's HER body. That's not rocket science. Someone commented that "ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the Law." Well, for that matter, possession is 9/10 of the Law.

 

Once again, Chandos, I'm not saying the guy should have 100% say in the matter. I'm not some refugee from the 1700s. But I just don't go with the "it's her body, she can do what she wants without regard for the opinions of the father." The guys responsibility for creating the fetus start when he has sex. Ergo, he also has rights at the same time.