ABORTION

[przy 0]

I believe in pro-choice, but I also believe that abortion should not be used as birth control. It is sad to see young people sleeping around (knowing full well what can happen) and then choosing abortion as their subsequential method of birth control.

[CaNdiD wiTcH 0]

No

Illegal

No

i do agree...

[tanyakaraman 0]

That, I think, is the key to the whole issue. Providing and promoting options......making them more feasible for people.

That embodies the true meaning of the phrase "pro-choice".

Also if you did not want it, give it up for adoption they are plently of couples who can't have kids would love to have it and give it a chance.

I'm an abortion provider so obviously I am pro-choice, but I do agree that it would be great if adoption were a better option for more people. I wish that our society would support people who choose adoption, because as you state, there are lots of families that would be happy to provide wonderful lives for children whose parents can't take care of them.

[tanyakaraman 0]

My feelings exactly. I think for the most part, you make your "choice" when you decide to have sex...although there are certainly cases where that doesn't apply.

Simply thinking ahead and being responsible would solve a lot of issues in our society...

I believe in pro-choice, but I also believe that abortion should not be used as birth control. It is sad to see young people sleeping around (knowing full well what can happen) and then choosing abortion as their subsequential method of birth control.

[Welshcookie 17]

I'm an abortion provider so obviously I am pro-choice, but I do agree that it would be great if adoption were a better option for more people. I wish that our society would support people who choose adoption, because as you state, there are lots of families that would be happy to provide wonderful lives for children whose parents can't take care of them.

Indeed..but I believe there are many many children up for adoption..but most couples who can't have children crave only babies.

[bora bora 1]

I am NOT pro-abortion but I AM pro-choice. I believe that this decision should be made by the woman (and her boyfriend/husband if possible).

Like many others have stated, abortion should NOT be used as a form of birth control IMO and I'm shocked by how many women do. My sister works for Child Protection Services and she had a client in her early 20's who has 3 children and had had 9 abortions. That is ridiculous!!!

I believe that abortion should be legal because the alternative can be nasty for those girls that have illegal abortions.

I don't think that I could ever have an abortion, but until I walked in someone else's shoes I cannot say for sure. God forbid someone I knew was raped - I'd say have the abortion without hesitation.

[Ontarkie 14,151]

undecided cause really I didnt know how to answer. I'm not against abortion but i also dont like it.

It should be legal but maybe have more conseling required for those that seek it and have the options explained to them a bit more. I know they do that already but maybe a little more would help.

I myself dont think i would ever have one to ME it just seems wrong.

[tmma 467]

I am pro choice and believe abortion should be legal. Some women will have an abortion wether it's legal or not and if they make it illegal, an abortion may have to be performed-in potentially unsafe, unstandardized conditions by people who may not be actual doctors..

As for wether I myself would have an abortion- I just thank God, I have never had to make that decision. It would depend on many factors.... but I absolutly believe abortion should not be used as some kind of a back up birth control method, though. Take the pill, use a condom etc etc etc.

[dalegg 143]

It is simple, I don't care, It is murder. it is still living inside you. Also if you did not want it, give it up for adoption they are plently of couples who can't have kids would love to have it and give it a chance.

And that's fine for YOU....not everyone thinks in that way, including myself.

as, for everyone it's different to state when does 'life begin'.. for some, life doens't begin when the sperm and the egg fuse into one.. for some, it starts a couple of days after.. for some, it's just a cell for a couple of weeks.. would you call a living being a cell that still has no heart, brain or spine?.. the 'swimming trip' is not instantaneous nors occurs at light speed....

this is an issue of differences, not rights or wrongs.. and you think everybody's wrong cuz they don't agree with you, get off the holy than thou pedestal pliz

The controversy has nothing to do with that. People that are pro-choice don't generally take the question of whether its alive or not into account. Its not part of the equation. There is no way to argue that a fetus is alive at 2 months, but most pro-choice persons will not blink an eye at abortions being performed at 90 days gestation or less. Many will go into the second trimester before they become squeemish and for some only the question of late term abortions is controversial, and of course the real militant pro choice persons will argue until the day the cord is cut, the woman's right to do what she wants with her body supercedes the right of an unborn human to exist.

Pro choice people will never debate the question of life because they cannot win that argument, so their focus remains on painting pro lifers as bent on taking away women's rights.

Well that is what its about isn't it?

By definition it is a byproduct- similar to the way that when child protective services takes away your children due to neglect or abuse you could say it violates your parental rights, or when gang members' guns are taken away it voilates their right to bear arms. But none of the byproducts is actually the intent.

Can you say that people who want more restrictive gun control measures actually want people to be defenseless against bad guys? No, you can't, even though that is the end result. We don't go around saying that they are "anti-self defense"- well not all of us- because there intentions are to save lives, not restrict self defense.

[dalegg 143]

It is simple, I don't care, It is murder. it is still living inside you. Also if you did not want it, give it up for adoption they are plently of couples who can't have kids would love to have it and give it a chance.

And that's fine for YOU....not everyone thinks in that way, including myself.

as, for everyone it's different to state when does 'life begin'.. for some, life doens't begin when the sperm and the egg fuse into one.. for some, it starts a couple of days after.. for some, it's just a cell for a couple of weeks.. would you call a living being a cell that still has no heart, brain or spine?.. the 'swimming trip' is not instantaneous nors occurs at light speed....

this is an issue of differences, not rights or wrongs.. and you think everybody's wrong cuz they don't agree with you, get off the holy than thou pedestal pliz

The controversy has nothing to do with that. People that are pro-choice don't generally take the question of whether its alive or not into account. Its not part of the equation. There is no way to argue that a fetus is alive at 2 months, but most pro-choice persons will not blink an eye at abortions being performed at 90 days gestation or less. Many will go into the second trimester before they become squeemish and for some only the question of late term abortions is controversial, and of course the real militant pro choice persons will argue until the day the cord is cut, the woman's right to do what she wants with her body supercedes the right of an unborn human to exist.

Pro choice people will never debate the question of life because they cannot win that argument, so their focus remains on painting pro lifers as bent on taking away women's rights.

"Whether or not abortion should be legal turns on the answer to the question of whether and at what point a fetus is a person. This is a question that cannot be answered logically or empirically. The concept of personhood is neither logical nor empirical: It is essentially a religious, or quasi-religious idea, based on one's fundamental (and therefore unverifiable) assumptions about the nature of the world." Paul Campos, professor of law at the University of Colorado. (2002)

......

Personhood is attained at about 22 weeks gestation:

This argument is based on the definition of death.

Ethicist D.A. Jones has written:

"Death is not just another disease that can be specified, analyzed, and catalogued as viral or bacterial, infectious or auto-immune. Death is the final cessation of life. Thus defining death requires more than medical and technical expertise: It requires also some agreed understanding of what is constitutive of human life, and what it is that must be absent before the person can be said to be dead."

"Sometimes it will be obvious to any reasonable observer that someone is dead, or alternatively, that someone is still alive. Someone who is breathing [without a respirator] and talking and walking around is obviously alive. Someone whose body is rotting away and hanging off the bones is obviously dead. However there are some cases, perhaps many cases, where it will not be obvious to an unqualified layman whether someone is alive or dead. In these cases it is the decision of competent physicians that decides the issue."

1

Prior to about 1960, a person would be declared dead if both their heartbeat and breathing had ceased and could not be re-started. But newer technological developments made this definition invalid. Heart pacemakers can keep the heart beating indefinitely long after all other internal systems have wound down. Respirators can keep the person apparently breathing forever.

Death is generally defined in most U.S. states as a situation in which the brain "flat-lines." That is, there is no major central nervous system activity and there is no detectable electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex. At this point, the person may be declared dead in many jurisdictions. The patient may appear to be breathing, as a result of the action of a respirator. Her/his heart may still be beating, either on its own or as a result of a heart pacemaker. But he/she is judged to be dead. Unplugging the patient from life support systems at this point will not actually kill the patient; she/he is already considered to be dead.

The great rise of transplant medicine has, then, been wholly dependent upon organ harvesting from so called 'beating-heart cadavers', that is, patients who are determined to be dead on the basis of brain death criteria. ₁ But their hearts continue to beat (sometimes with external help), to keep the body's organs fresh for transplanting.

If the point of death is defined as a lack of electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex one might use the same criteria to define the start of human life. One might argue that fetal life becomes human person when electrical activity commences in the cerebral cortex. Human personhood, would then start when consciousness begins and ends when consciousness irrevocably ends. One could then argue that a fully-informed woman should have access to abortion at any point before the point that human personhood begins.

According to author Richard Carrier:

"

...

the fetus does not become truly neurologically active until the fifth month (an event we call 'quickening.' This activity might only be a generative one, i.e. the spontaneous nerve pulses could merely be autonomous or spontaneous reflexes aimed at stimulating and developing muscle and organ tissue. Nevertheless, it is in this month that a complex cerebral cortex, the one unique feature of human -- in contrast with animal -- brains, begins to develop, and is typically complete, though still growing, by the sixth month. What is actually going on mentally at that point is unknown, but the hardware is in place for a human mind to exist in at least a primitive state."

When medical ethicist Bonnie Steinbock was interviewed by Newsweek and asked the question "So when does life begin?," she answered:

"If we're talking about life in the biological sense, eggs are alive, sperm are alive. Cancer tumors are alive. For me, what matters is this: When does it have the moral status of a human being? When does it have some kind of awareness of its surroundings? When it can feel pain, for example, because that's one of the most brute kinds of awareness there could be. And that happens, interestingly enough, just around the time of viability. It certainly doesn't happen with an embryo

.

"

8

Under this argument, some primitive neurological activity in the cerebral cortex begins during the fifth month, conceivably as early as the 22nd week of pregnancy. If we allow a two week safety factor, then society could set the gestation time limit at which abortions should not be freely available at 20 weeks. Abortions could then be requested up to the start of the 20th week for normal pregnancies, or at a later time if unusual conditions existed. Many state and provincial medical associations in North America have actually adopted this limit, probably using a different rationale.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_argu.htm

Thats all very nice. You argued whether or not the fetus was a "human", but not whether it is alive. As I said, the simple question of life is undeniable.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It is simple, I don't care, It is murder. it is still living inside you. Also if you did not want it, give it up for adoption they are plently of couples who can't have kids would love to have it and give it a chance.

And that's fine for YOU....not everyone thinks in that way, including myself.

as, for everyone it's different to state when does 'life begin'.. for some, life doens't begin when the sperm and the egg fuse into one.. for some, it starts a couple of days after.. for some, it's just a cell for a couple of weeks.. would you call a living being a cell that still has no heart, brain or spine?.. the 'swimming trip' is not instantaneous nors occurs at light speed....

this is an issue of differences, not rights or wrongs.. and you think everybody's wrong cuz they don't agree with you, get off the holy than thou pedestal pliz

The controversy has nothing to do with that. People that are pro-choice don't generally take the question of whether its alive or not into account. Its not part of the equation. There is no way to argue that a fetus is alive at 2 months, but most pro-choice persons will not blink an eye at abortions being performed at 90 days gestation or less. Many will go into the second trimester before they become squeemish and for some only the question of late term abortions is controversial, and of course the real militant pro choice persons will argue until the day the cord is cut, the woman's right to do what she wants with her body supercedes the right of an unborn human to exist.

Pro choice people will never debate the question of life because they cannot win that argument, so their focus remains on painting pro lifers as bent on taking away women's rights.

Well that is what its about isn't it?

By definition it is a byproduct- similar to the way that when child protective services takes away your children due to neglect or abuse you could say it violates your parental rights, or when gang members' guns are taken away it voilates their right to bear arms. But none of the byproducts is actually the intent.

Can you say that people who want more restrictive gun control measures actually want people to be defenseless against bad guys? No, you can't, even though that is the end result. We don't go around saying that they are "anti-self defense"- well not all of us- because there intentions are to save lives, not restrict self defense.

The end result you're talking about is that a woman will be forced against her will to go through with a pregnancy she may not want - with little more than a finger wagging "you should have thought of that before".

That's not to say that the woman always has the best judgement, but she surely has some right to manage her own body. All that can reasonably be done is provide the information to allow her to make an informed choice.

[dalegg 143]

By definition it is a byproduct- similar to the way that when child protective services takes away your children due to neglect or abuse you could say it violates your parental rights, or when gang members' guns are taken away it voilates their right to bear arms. But none of the byproducts is actually the intent.

Can you say that people who want more restrictive gun control measures actually want people to be defenseless against bad guys? No, you can't, even though that is the end result. We don't go around saying that they are "anti-self defense"- well not all of us- because there intentions are to save lives, not restrict self defense.

The end result you're talking about is that a woman will be forced against her will to go through with a pregnancy she may not want - with little more than a finger wagging "you should have thought of that before".

That's not to say that the woman always has the best judgement, but she surely has some right to manage her own body. All that can reasonably be done is provide the information to allow her to make an informed choice.

So, how come I don't have the right to manage my own body? Seatbelt laws and helmet laws will fine you hundreds of dollars if you don't where these devices. The end result is that I am forced to put on a seatbelt I don't want, or put something on my head that I don't want. Heck, you can't even argue that I'm putting some less than 22 week unknown lifeform at risk with me. Its just me, but society has decided my life is more important than my choice.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

By definition it is a byproduct- similar to the way that when child protective services takes away your children due to neglect or abuse you could say it violates your parental rights, or when gang members' guns are taken away it voilates their right to bear arms. But none of the byproducts is actually the intent.

Can you say that people who want more restrictive gun control measures actually want people to be defenseless against bad guys? No, you can't, even though that is the end result. We don't go around saying that they are "anti-self defense"- well not all of us- because there intentions are to save lives, not restrict self defense.

The end result you're talking about is that a woman will be forced against her will to go through with a pregnancy she may not want - with little more than a finger wagging "you should have thought of that before".

That's not to say that the woman always has the best judgement, but she surely has some right to manage her own body. All that can reasonably be done is provide the information to allow her to make an informed choice.

So, how come I don't have the right to manage my own body? Seatbelt laws and helmet laws will fine you hundreds of dollars if you don't where these devices. The end result is that I am forced to put on a seatbelt I don't want, or put something on my head that I don't want. Heck, you can't even argue that I'm putting some less than 22 week unknown lifeform at risk with me. Its just me, but society has decided my life is more important than my choice.

Well if you're going to go down the road of remote analogies the argument might as well be that if you had a 6th finger on each hand, that someone else has the right to tell you that it shouldn't be removed.

[dalegg 143]

By definition it is a byproduct- similar to the way that when child protective services takes away your children due to neglect or abuse you could say it violates your parental rights, or when gang members' guns are taken away it voilates their right to bear arms. But none of the byproducts is actually the intent.

Can you say that people who want more restrictive gun control measures actually want people to be defenseless against bad guys? No, you can't, even though that is the end result. We don't go around saying that they are "anti-self defense"- well not all of us- because there intentions are to save lives, not restrict self defense.

The end result you're talking about is that a woman will be forced against her will to go through with a pregnancy she may not want - with little more than a finger wagging "you should have thought of that before".

That's not to say that the woman always has the best judgement, but she surely has some right to manage her own body. All that can reasonably be done is provide the information to allow her to make an informed choice.

So, how come I don't have the right to manage my own body? Seatbelt laws and helmet laws will fine you hundreds of dollars if you don't where these devices. The end result is that I am forced to put on a seatbelt I don't want, or put something on my head that I don't want. Heck, you can't even argue that I'm putting some less than 22 week unknown lifeform at risk with me. Its just me, but society has decided my life is more important than my choice.

Well if you're going to go down the road of remote analogies the argument might as well be that if you had a 6th finger on each hand, that someone else has the right to tell you that it shouldn't be removed.

Removing the finger from your hand does not result in the death of another human being (or human type embryo) or significantly increase the liklihood of putting your own life in peril.

You are right though, I cannot offer you any sort of analogy to that of abortion because nothing else society has ever accepted as a personal right has resulted in the extermination of what would undeniably be an innocent human life.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It is simple, I don't care, It is murder. it is still living inside you. Also if you did not want it, give it up for adoption they are plently of couples who can't have kids would love to have it and give it a chance.

And that's fine for YOU....not everyone thinks in that way, including myself.

as, for everyone it's different to state when does 'life begin'.. for some, life doens't begin when the sperm and the egg fuse into one.. for some, it starts a couple of days after.. for some, it's just a cell for a couple of weeks.. would you call a living being a cell that still has no heart, brain or spine?.. the 'swimming trip' is not instantaneous nors occurs at light speed....

this is an issue of differences, not rights or wrongs.. and you think everybody's wrong cuz they don't agree with you, get off the holy than thou pedestal pliz

The controversy has nothing to do with that. People that are pro-choice don't generally take the question of whether its alive or not into account. Its not part of the equation. There is no way to argue that a fetus is alive at 2 months, but most pro-choice persons will not blink an eye at abortions being performed at 90 days gestation or less. Many will go into the second trimester before they become squeemish and for some only the question of late term abortions is controversial, and of course the real militant pro choice persons will argue until the day the cord is cut, the woman's right to do what she wants with her body supercedes the right of an unborn human to exist.

Pro choice people will never debate the question of life because they cannot win that argument, so their focus remains on painting pro lifers as bent on taking away women's rights.

"Whether or not abortion should be legal turns on the answer to the question of whether and at what point a fetus is a person. This is a question that cannot be answered logically or empirically. The concept of personhood is neither logical nor empirical: It is essentially a religious, or quasi-religious idea, based on one's fundamental (and therefore unverifiable) assumptions about the nature of the world." Paul Campos, professor of law at the University of Colorado. (2002)

......

Personhood is attained at about 22 weeks gestation:

This argument is based on the definition of death.

Ethicist D.A. Jones has written:

"Death is not just another disease that can be specified, analyzed, and catalogued as viral or bacterial, infectious or auto-immune. Death is the final cessation of life. Thus defining death requires more than medical and technical expertise: It requires also some agreed understanding of what is constitutive of human life, and what it is that must be absent before the person can be said to be dead."

"Sometimes it will be obvious to any reasonable observer that someone is dead, or alternatively, that someone is still alive. Someone who is breathing [without a respirator] and talking and walking around is obviously alive. Someone whose body is rotting away and hanging off the bones is obviously dead. However there are some cases, perhaps many cases, where it will not be obvious to an unqualified layman whether someone is alive or dead. In these cases it is the decision of competent physicians that decides the issue."

1

Prior to about 1960, a person would be declared dead if both their heartbeat and breathing had ceased and could not be re-started. But newer technological developments made this definition invalid. Heart pacemakers can keep the heart beating indefinitely long after all other internal systems have wound down. Respirators can keep the person apparently breathing forever.

Death is generally defined in most U.S. states as a situation in which the brain "flat-lines." That is, there is no major central nervous system activity and there is no detectable electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex. At this point, the person may be declared dead in many jurisdictions. The patient may appear to be breathing, as a result of the action of a respirator. Her/his heart may still be beating, either on its own or as a result of a heart pacemaker. But he/she is judged to be dead. Unplugging the patient from life support systems at this point will not actually kill the patient; she/he is already considered to be dead.

The great rise of transplant medicine has, then, been wholly dependent upon organ harvesting from so called 'beating-heart cadavers', that is, patients who are determined to be dead on the basis of brain death criteria. ₁ But their hearts continue to beat (sometimes with external help), to keep the body's organs fresh for transplanting.

If the point of death is defined as a lack of electrical activity in the brain's cerebral cortex one might use the same criteria to define the start of human life. One might argue that fetal life becomes human person when electrical activity commences in the cerebral cortex. Human personhood, would then start when consciousness begins and ends when consciousness irrevocably ends. One could then argue that a fully-informed woman should have access to abortion at any point before the point that human personhood begins.

According to author Richard Carrier:

"

...

the fetus does not become truly neurologically active until the fifth month (an event we call 'quickening.' This activity might only be a generative one, i.e. the spontaneous nerve pulses could merely be autonomous or spontaneous reflexes aimed at stimulating and developing muscle and organ tissue. Nevertheless, it is in this month that a complex cerebral cortex, the one unique feature of human -- in contrast with animal -- brains, begins to develop, and is typically complete, though still growing, by the sixth month. What is actually going on mentally at that point is unknown, but the hardware is in place for a human mind to exist in at least a primitive state."

When medical ethicist Bonnie Steinbock was interviewed by Newsweek and asked the question "So when does life begin?," she answered:

"If we're talking about life in the biological sense, eggs are alive, sperm are alive. Cancer tumors are alive. For me, what matters is this: When does it have the moral status of a human being? When does it have some kind of awareness of its surroundings? When it can feel pain, for example, because that's one of the most brute kinds of awareness there could be. And that happens, interestingly enough, just around the time of viability. It certainly doesn't happen with an embryo

.

"

8

Under this argument, some primitive neurological activity in the cerebral cortex begins during the fifth month, conceivably as early as the 22nd week of pregnancy. If we allow a two week safety factor, then society could set the gestation time limit at which abortions should not be freely available at 20 weeks. Abortions could then be requested up to the start of the 20th week for normal pregnancies, or at a later time if unusual conditions existed. Many state and provincial medical associations in North America have actually adopted this limit, probably using a different rationale.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_argu.htm

Thats all very nice. You argued whether or not the fetus was a "human", but not whether it is alive. As I said, the simple question of life is undeniable.

But it is relevant because the way we determine when someone is dead would logically apply to when we determine when someone is alive. If simple saying something is alive is the determining factor, then every wasted sperm and every unfertilized egg is ceasing to live and any form of birth control method contributes to the those living organisms dying. If you don't agree with the premise that life ceases when the brain flat lines, then when do you consider someone as dead?