I've stayed away from this thread, but partly due to procrastination on homework (ironically about infant abandonment laws), and partly due to curiousity, I wanted to pop in. I have mixed feelings about abortion. If I were pregnant and the fetus/baby wasn't going to harm me, then I would at least give the baby up for adoption or keep the baby, but I know people who have had abortions, and I don't think any less of them.
Saying that, I know someone who got pregnant at 17, and she had an abortion. Thinking about me being in her shoes, it makes me more compassionate towards the situation. I mean, in doing my research for the infant abandonment laws, many mothers who abandon their babies hid their pregnancies. It might not always be an option to hide your pregnancy (I would imagine like if you're naturally thin and the only part of you that gets bigger is your belly). And many mothers do abandon their babies in trash bins or in ditches or whatnot. So, thinking about it that way, what's the difference between killing your child by abortion or by abandoning the baby (whether or not you kill the baby first)? And it could be argued that the abortion would be more humane.
Super Aurora wrote:I do murder all the time...
Just like these recent news stories:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article. ... LAHO862914
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-573 ... this-year/
*sigh* (For the record, I am so not for those bills!) That is so over the top. I mean, women's eggs aren't always fertilized, either! I think that if it's not used in the creation of a fetus, then definitely, absolutely, it's not murder or anything. Ugh, people and their crazy beliefs.
Kraken Guard wrote:I don't agree with people having an abortion simply because they don't want the unborn child when it is born.
It's definitely hard to understand why people would have multiple abortions, and some may say that they should get their tubes tied, especially because birth control (whether condoms, pills, or other methods) can be attained for free at many clinics. As a social work student, though, I definitely see issues differently, and one needs to be more sensitive and not lump people together, don't generalize. This article sheds some light into the mind-set of why women would seek multiple abortions:
Abortion Addict Confesses 15 Procedures in 16 Years
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Reproducti ... 0kXGfEgeBQ
So, sometimes it's more psychological for the women that have multiple abortions.
In the case of rape, I've read that actually giving birth to the baby can be psychologically scarring. Like this article says:
http://www.secasa.com.au/index.php/survivors/4/151
For many women the emotional and psychological impact of rape creates Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and symptoms are often exacerbated when the victim/survivor gives birth.
And Goliath said something similar, good job!
candydog wrote:And what about the rights of the father? Where does he factor into this? If the woman doesn't want the child and the father does, shouldn't he be able to raise the child himself?
This subject comes up in the infant abandonment arguments that I'm researching. For legal abandonment (dropping a newborn at a "safe haven", such as a hospital or police station), in some states, at least for abandonment issues, it's all confidential so the father can't always be contacted. In some states, such as South Carolina where I'm living now, media outlets need to be notified of the abandoned baby. In some states, an effort is made to find the father. Now, this is different from abortion, of course, but sometimes the father may not know that he impregnated the woman.
This article says:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/weeki ... lluck.html
Case study one: a pregnant woman wants an abortion. Her husband doesn't. Should he have a say?...The answer, legally, is no in the abortion case.
...
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
...
The Casey decision effectively left the decision of whether to have an abortion entirely up to the woman.
...
With abortion, said Marsha Garrison, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, the courts recognize that "that embryo is in the woman's body, it's within her and can't be separated from her, so it's not just her decision-making about whether to bear a child, it's about her body."
Ms. Garrison said even if a man is tricked into impregnating a woman, many courts have held that "well, it just doesn't matter: if you engage in sexual intercourse, you assume the risk that a child will be born."
Lazario wrote:But that being said, for my 2 cents, I don't think people are properly educated on sex.
Thank you. It boils my blood that a comprehensive sex education isn't included in health classes across all middle and high schools. It's not encouraging the people to have sex. Adolescents who were already going to have sex will just be more educated. We learned about sex and contraception and sexually transmitted diseases/infections in my public high school, and I know that I wasn't more likely to have sex before I was ready to just because we were learning about it. I mean, show the slides of what herpes looks like, let the students learn about the "unsexy" characteristics of having sex!
This is super-interesting. I'd be curious to know anyone's thoughts on this:
Unwanted pregnancy doubles women's risk of mental health problems, but opting for abortion 'has no impact'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... mpact.html
Even if a man doesn't even have intercourse with a woman, but agrees to receive oral sex from her after which she inseminates herself with the contents of the condom, completely unbeknownst to him, he is still made to pay child support for the resulting baby
That's completely horrible. Wow.
Disney Duster wrote: A siamese twin must depend on the other to survive, yet killing one of them would be considered murder.
If you're speaking about Siamese twins who have been born, then those twins aren't in the mother's womb, they are not "parasites," using other people's terminology. So it's completely different, it'd be killing a really-for-real, born human.
And this is getting off-topic, but what do you feel about pulling the plug on someone who is on life-support? Do you think that that's wrong, that someone who has been on life-support for years and it's so unlikely that their health will improve, should stay on life support, just in case?
yamiiguy wrote:That definition of death is archaic due to the fact you can restart the heart and due to the fact that some living organisms do not have a heart. Due to the fact that there is no real definition of life, there is no real definition of death.
So well-put!
:my chicken is infected" wrote:Pro-choice all the way. Pro-choice =/= pro-abortion. I don't think anyone likes abortion. I don't know anyone who's like "Oh, I just cannot WAIT to get this abortion! We'll paint toenails, order Chinese, watch some romantic comedies, have fetus-shaped cookies! It'll be fun!" It just means it's someone else's choice, not mine.
That's a really, really good point. I mean, I think when it comes down to it, it's a matter of quality-of-life for the woman. If the pregnancy would negatively impact her life, such as she supports herself and due to the physical nature of her job, she wouldn't be able to work anymore, for one example. Or a rape example. It really is a personal decision, based on what the woman deems is right for herself. It's more about the woman than the fetus.
Then, of course, we have the cases like mentioned above, where the abortion is continually used as a method of birth control, but as the article points out, often there is a psychological issue there.
Disney Geek wrote:A fetus isn't human life if it isn't viable outside the womb, and you mentioned arms and legs when arguing that it is. Another problem with what you have said(raised by yamiiguy), is that using the heart to define life and death, is outdated, as not all organisms have hearts.
I'm finished with this. You are using wishy washy arguments in the face of accepted Biology, and I don't know what else I can write if you're going to opine that limbs make an underdeveloped baby a soulful being
A thought just popped into my head, and it may be a moot point, but some humans aren't born with limbs...just saying.
DancingCrab wrote:According to the bible, a fetus is not a living person with a soul until after drawing its first breath.
That's actually a super-amazing revelation!
Super Aurora wrote:Bottom line, It seems like people only love to pick a chooses what they like or want from the bible to justify their own ideals or beliefs.
Not to get too much into this since this isn't the religion thread, but I agree with you so much. So much.
Disney Duster wrote:I think what we like about ourselves is what is not mistakes, and what we don't like is mistakes.
I've always liked you, DD, so I'm not picking on you whatsoever, but...
I'm short. Luckily, I'm fine with being short, but if I weren't, I could chalk it up to it being a mistake? A person has what everyone else would call psychological issues, and that person is a serial killer. He is fine with who he is, he doesn't think of it as a mistake, so that wouldn't be a mistake?
Sotiris wrote:Also, by not legalizing abortion you're not really stopping abortions from happening. You're just forcing women to travel to third-world countries and have an abortion under dangerous and unhealthy situations in which they might even lose their lives.
This. So hard this.
Last semester, we watched the "1952" segment starrting Demi Moore of
If These Walls Could Talk. Apparently the first part waS taken off of YouTube, but search it out. Basically, Demi's character's husband died, she needed comfort, she slept with her husband's brother and gets pregnant. So, so moving. And she didn't have to go to another country. So many women don't.
Alphapanchito wrote:I am continuously astounded that everyone in this thread is only addressing rape and abortion for women
I just wrote stuff and erased it. I feel that you explained it well in your response(s) to Goliath. In my earlier parts of this post, I wasn't at all trying to be insensitive- I just wasn't thinking about gender identity, just the physical aspects of getting pregnant.