GOP platform calls for constitutional abortion ban

[HAL 9000 96]

Maybe someone could explain to me how the party of less government in our lives, wants government in the middle of our personal lives?

Hypocrites. What do they do for people who see abortion as their only option? My guess is that they throw them a dollar out of the window of their Hummer as they wait for the light to change.

I'll try to explain why they may want to do that...

They believe the unborn baby deserves rights irregardless of whether it can survive on it's own outside the womb, it's still considered a separate person even if it relies on the mother's body for growing. So it becomes an issue of human rights. And sometimes even if someone doesn't want someone to tell them not to do something, they can't do it because it violates human rights.

I bet people were saying the same thing to Lincoln when he wanted to end slavery, he was getting too involved in their lives.

When I said earlier that I can understand more in the case of a mother who might die if she doesn't abort(that is very rare), I mean I can understand the decision being made but that doesn't mean I don't think it's killing that life. I know one life is being ended for another to go on, but it wouldn't just be a piece of the mother's body that was gotten rid of. I am not going to harshly judge that b/c I can't imagine that situation. But to me, it's one life that is ending and one is being chosen over another.

Therein lies yet another misconception: an unborn baby is by definition only considered a baby in the sense a "postnatal baby is a baby" when biologically viable- survivability. Before that its considered a fetus and previous to that, an embryo.

Using slippery slopes is not a good way of equating a perspective to fact.

I don't disagree with part of what you are saying. But after having a baby, and seeing ultrasounds, and at 12 weeks which is still the 1st trimester, seeing a little face and body on the screen...it already looks like a baby, it already feels, and makes decisions about where to bounce around inside. To me that means it's a separate person. By 20 weeks he looked even more like a big baby, and made lots of his own decisions, and that is 2nd trimester, when you find out if it's a boy or girl. If people argue the embryo part and it not being a person when it looks kind of blobbish, I won't agree from my moral standpoint but can understand why it's not thought of as a baby yet. The more it looks like a baby, no matter how small, to me it shouldn't matter whether it can fully survive outside of the womb to be given rights. There are babies born that have to go right to incubators and some people stay on machines their whole life, why are they different than a baby using their mom's body to live?

I am trying to talk in a scientific way not just from a moral standpoint. If being able to survive on one's own is the reason people use for when it's a "person", what about those who depend on a machine their entire lives, they aren't "viable" humans on their own and don't have normal functioning, but they have human rights.

If I look at this definition for viable:

(webster)

1: capable of living; especially : having attained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother's womb <a viable fetus>2: capable of growing or developing <viable seeds> <viable eggs>3 a: capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately <viable alternatives> b: capable of existence and development as an independent unit <the colony is now a viable state> c (1): having a reasonable chance of succeeding <a viable candidate> (2): financially sustainable <a viable enterprise>

There are a lot of people who are not capable of existing without medicines or machinery. Why are they different than a fetus in the womb? When a baby is first born, they will also die if no one feeds them. They aren't capable of surviving as a fully independent person. They still can't feed themselves or change their own diapers. They still are fully dependent on another human to take care of them or else they will die. Instead of using my blood as a source of nutrients to grow, they need milk. So those are the kinds of questions I have for the argument of viability.

I see where your logic lies but again, its a clearer definition of what is important within the topic that should be addressed:

1. The majority of vertebrate fetuses all 'look' identical across the phyla (classification of groups of species).

I am not sure where you are basing that a 20 week old fetus is able to 'make decisions'- that would need some behavioral proof to validate such a claim... no offense there.

2. Lets define a particular point for non-assisted viability (survival without help). This means that physiologically, a baby- at that point, would be considered as such and would most likely deserve protections from late-term abortions. Consider the following-

When does the fetus become a viable baby?

While the birth of a baby more than 12 weeks early poses manydilemmas, the threshold of viability has certainly been pushedback by the advent of respiratory support. Recent North Americanguidelines have suggested that survival occurs at 22 weeks,but Win Tin et al for the Northern Neonatal Network found noevidence for this in any white community (p 107) and identifiedonly eight survivors among the 197 babies of 23 weeks' gestationwho were alive at the start of labour in their own study (halfof whom had severe disability at 2 years). A 60% increase insurvival in babies of under 28 weeks over the 12 years of thestudy had not been accompanied by any change in the proportionwith disability, with 10% never likely to achieve mobility orcommunicate intelligibly. Recent developments have improvedthe outlook for the viable baby but have not changed the thresholdof viability.

Link

3. Suckling behavior is programmed in the brain of a baby. It is also programmed in the maternal instincts of the mother as well as accompanying anatomical and physiological changes. These are normal, expected behaviors that are completely different from the viability potential of an underdeveloped fetus.

The law doesn't recognise an unborn baby as an autonomous individual.

Luckily when the pregnancy is wanted and someone causes deliberate harm to a fetus, it is considered a crime. The law is indeed a priceless mechanism. That protects individual people from the impositions of others.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The law doesn't recognise an unborn baby as an autonomous individual.

Luckily when the pregnancy is wanted and someone causes deliberate harm to a fetus, it is considered a crime. The law is indeed a priceless mechanism. That protects individual people from the impositions of others.

If anything I'd say that abortion has more in common with euthanasia than with murder, though again we're talking about subtly different ethical considerations.

Essentially the decision whether or not to end life is made regardless of the person's wishes (even against explicit wishes to that effect). The argument changes in regard to abortion in that the child essentially has no views on the subject and no language with which to express them, so the mother's views are given precedence (assuming she's of sound mental health and capable of making an independent, rational judgement).

I will say though that it isn't exactly a consistent argument to terminate life-support via a purely biological process, but not a crime in the case of artificial life support. Unless of course - you consider that with abortion the "mother" has ultimate control over her body and her biological processes (which I believe is the reasoning behind it). Then again - per some laws (Texas Futile Care for example) if you're in a PVS the hospital is essentially permitted to make a similar decision for you whatever your wishes (spoken or otherwise) or those of your relatives may be.

Its not exactly consistent.

Edited August 27, 2008 by Number 6

[Peikko 1,575]

Maybe someone could explain to me how the party of less government in our lives, wants government in the middle of our personal lives?

Hypocrites. What do they do for people who see abortion as their only option? My guess is that they throw them a dollar out of the window of their Hummer as they wait for the light to change.

I'll try to explain why they may want to do that...

They believe the unborn baby deserves rights irregardless of whether it can survive on it's own outside the womb, it's still considered a separate person even if it relies on the mother's body for growing. So it becomes an issue of human rights. And sometimes even if someone doesn't want someone to tell them not to do something, they can't do it because it violates human rights.

I bet people were saying the same thing to Lincoln when he wanted to end slavery, he was getting too involved in their lives.

When I said earlier that I can understand more in the case of a mother who might die if she doesn't abort(that is very rare), I mean I can understand the decision being made but that doesn't mean I don't think it's killing that life. I know one life is being ended for another to go on, but it wouldn't just be a piece of the mother's body that was gotten rid of. I am not going to harshly judge that b/c I can't imagine that situation. But to me, it's one life that is ending and one is being chosen over another.

Therein lies yet another misconception: an unborn baby is by definition only considered a baby in the sense a "postnatal baby is a baby" when biologically viable- survivability. Before that its considered a fetus and previous to that, an embryo.

Using slippery slopes is not a good way of equating a perspective to fact.

I don't disagree with part of what you are saying. But after having a baby, and seeing ultrasounds, and at 12 weeks which is still the 1st trimester, seeing a little face and body on the screen...it already looks like a baby, it already feels, and makes decisions about where to bounce around inside. To me that means it's a separate person. By 20 weeks he looked even more like a big baby, and made lots of his own decisions, and that is 2nd trimester, when you find out if it's a boy or girl. If people argue the embryo part and it not being a person when it looks kind of blobbish, I won't agree from my moral standpoint but can understand why it's not thought of as a baby yet. The more it looks like a baby, no matter how small, to me it shouldn't matter whether it can fully survive outside of the womb to be given rights. There are babies born that have to go right to incubators and some people stay on machines their whole life, why are they different than a baby using their mom's body to live?

I am trying to talk in a scientific way not just from a moral standpoint. If being able to survive on one's own is the reason people use for when it's a "person", what about those who depend on a machine their entire lives, they aren't "viable" humans on their own and don't have normal functioning, but they have human rights.

If I look at this definition for viable:

(webster)

1: capable of living; especially : having attained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother's womb <a viable fetus>2: capable of growing or developing <viable seeds> <viable eggs>3 a: capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately <viable alternatives> b: capable of existence and development as an independent unit <the colony is now a viable state> c (1): having a reasonable chance of succeeding <a viable candidate> (2): financially sustainable <a viable enterprise>

There are a lot of people who are not capable of existing without medicines or machinery. Why are they different than a fetus in the womb? When a baby is first born, they will also die if no one feeds them. They aren't capable of surviving as a fully independent person. They still can't feed themselves or change their own diapers. They still are fully dependent on another human to take care of them or else they will die. Instead of using my blood as a source of nutrients to grow, they need milk. So those are the kinds of questions I have for the argument of viability.

I would suggest you are trying to bring absolutes into a situation where absolutes have no merit.

For example, if human rights start at the moment that an egg and a sperm conjoin then you have to consider many more currently acceptable behaviours and eliminate them, or at least try to.

It would also result in some very involved legal cases when the rights of the mother conflict with the rights of the foetus - even in cases when the mother and foetus would die if the pregnancy is allowed to continue.

It would also lead to the scenarios that six has touched on.

If you truly want the results that you want which are very low abortion rates, the best way forward is not to try to ban abortion, but to educate, educate, educate. Educate all effectively the effective methods of birth control. Educate effectively emotional and sexual relationships and educated effectively what being a parent entails. Abortion prevention is much more effective when it is something people avoid because they want to than trying to legislate against.

Edited August 27, 2008 by Purple_Hibiscus

[HAL 9000 96]

The law doesn't recognise an unborn baby as an autonomous individual.

Luckily when the pregnancy is wanted and someone causes deliberate harm to a fetus, it is considered a crime. The law is indeed a priceless mechanism. That protects individual people from the impositions of others.

If anything I'd say that abortion has more in common with euthanasia than with murder, though again we're talking about subtly different ethical considerations.

Essentially the decision whether or not to end life is made regardless of the person's wishes (even against explicit wishes to that effect). The argument changes in regard to abortion in that the child essentially has no views on the subject and no language with which to express them, so the mother's views are given precedence (assuming she's of sound mental health and capable of making an independent, rational judgement).

I will say though that it isn't exactly a consistent argument to terminate life-support via a purely biological process, but not a crime in the case of artificial life support. Unless of course - you consider that with abortion the "mother" has ultimate control over her body and her biological processes (which I believe is the reasoning behind it). Then again - per some laws (Texas Futile Care for example) if you're in a PVS the hospital is essentially permitted to make a similar decision for you whatever your wishes (spoken or otherwise) or those of your relatives may be.

Its not exactly consistent.

Pretty much.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Maybe someone could explain to me how the party of less government in our lives, wants government in the middle of our personal lives?

Hypocrites. What do they do for people who see abortion as their only option? My guess is that they throw them a dollar out of the window of their Hummer as they wait for the light to change.

I'll try to explain why they may want to do that...

They believe the unborn baby deserves rights irregardless of whether it can survive on it's own outside the womb, it's still considered a separate person even if it relies on the mother's body for growing. So it becomes an issue of human rights. And sometimes even if someone doesn't want someone to tell them not to do something, they can't do it because it violates human rights.

I bet people were saying the same thing to Lincoln when he wanted to end slavery, he was getting too involved in their lives.

When I said earlier that I can understand more in the case of a mother who might die if she doesn't abort(that is very rare), I mean I can understand the decision being made but that doesn't mean I don't think it's killing that life. I know one life is being ended for another to go on, but it wouldn't just be a piece of the mother's body that was gotten rid of. I am not going to harshly judge that b/c I can't imagine that situation. But to me, it's one life that is ending and one is being chosen over another.

Therein lies yet another misconception: an unborn baby is by definition only considered a baby in the sense a "postnatal baby is a baby" when biologically viable- survivability. Before that its considered a fetus and previous to that, an embryo.

Using slippery slopes is not a good way of equating a perspective to fact.

I don't disagree with part of what you are saying. But after having a baby, and seeing ultrasounds, and at 12 weeks which is still the 1st trimester, seeing a little face and body on the screen...it already looks like a baby, it already feels, and makes decisions about where to bounce around inside. To me that means it's a separate person. By 20 weeks he looked even more like a big baby, and made lots of his own decisions, and that is 2nd trimester, when you find out if it's a boy or girl. If people argue the embryo part and it not being a person when it looks kind of blobbish, I won't agree from my moral standpoint but can understand why it's not thought of as a baby yet. The more it looks like a baby, no matter how small, to me it shouldn't matter whether it can fully survive outside of the womb to be given rights. There are babies born that have to go right to incubators and some people stay on machines their whole life, why are they different than a baby using their mom's body to live?

I am trying to talk in a scientific way not just from a moral standpoint. If being able to survive on one's own is the reason people use for when it's a "person", what about those who depend on a machine their entire lives, they aren't "viable" humans on their own and don't have normal functioning, but they have human rights.

If I look at this definition for viable:

(webster)

1: capable of living; especially : having attained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother's womb <a viable fetus>2: capable of growing or developing <viable seeds> <viable eggs>3 a: capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately <viable alternatives> b: capable of existence and development as an independent unit <the colony is now a viable state> c (1): having a reasonable chance of succeeding <a viable candidate> (2): financially sustainable <a viable enterprise>

There are a lot of people who are not capable of existing without medicines or machinery. Why are they different than a fetus in the womb? When a baby is first born, they will also die if no one feeds them. They aren't capable of surviving as a fully independent person. They still can't feed themselves or change their own diapers. They still are fully dependent on another human to take care of them or else they will die. Instead of using my blood as a source of nutrients to grow, they need milk. So those are the kinds of questions I have for the argument of viability.

I would suggest you are trying to bring absolutes into a situation where absolutes have no merit.

For example, if human rights start at the moment that an egg and a sperm conjoin then you have to consider many more currently acceptable behaviours and eliminate them, or at least try to.

It would also result in some very involved legal cases when the rights of the mother conflict with the rights of the foetus - even in cases when the mother and foetus would die if the pregnancy is allowed to continue.

It would also lead to the scenarios that six has touched on.

If you truly want the results that you want which are very low abortion rates, the best way forward is not to try to ban abortion, but to educate, educate, educate. Educate all effectively the effective methods of birth control. Educate effectively emotional and sexual relationships and educated effectively what being a parent entails. Abortion prevention is much more effective when it is something people avoid because they want to than trying to legislate against.

I think that's about right - there is no assumption that a person must or even will have an abortion. If you practice safe sex - its an option you'll never face or have to consider. The debate is backwards on this issue - because we're fixated on banning a medical procedure to the exclusion of the wider issues of education and responsibility.

[HAL 9000 96]

Maybe someone could explain to me how the party of less government in our lives, wants government in the middle of our personal lives?

Hypocrites. What do they do for people who see abortion as their only option? My guess is that they throw them a dollar out of the window of their Hummer as they wait for the light to change.

I'll try to explain why they may want to do that...

They believe the unborn baby deserves rights irregardless of whether it can survive on it's own outside the womb, it's still considered a separate person even if it relies on the mother's body for growing. So it becomes an issue of human rights. And sometimes even if someone doesn't want someone to tell them not to do something, they can't do it because it violates human rights.

I bet people were saying the same thing to Lincoln when he wanted to end slavery, he was getting too involved in their lives.

When I said earlier that I can understand more in the case of a mother who might die if she doesn't abort(that is very rare), I mean I can understand the decision being made but that doesn't mean I don't think it's killing that life. I know one life is being ended for another to go on, but it wouldn't just be a piece of the mother's body that was gotten rid of. I am not going to harshly judge that b/c I can't imagine that situation. But to me, it's one life that is ending and one is being chosen over another.

Therein lies yet another misconception: an unborn baby is by definition only considered a baby in the sense a "postnatal baby is a baby" when biologically viable- survivability. Before that its considered a fetus and previous to that, an embryo.

Using slippery slopes is not a good way of equating a perspective to fact.

I don't disagree with part of what you are saying. But after having a baby, and seeing ultrasounds, and at 12 weeks which is still the 1st trimester, seeing a little face and body on the screen...it already looks like a baby, it already feels, and makes decisions about where to bounce around inside. To me that means it's a separate person. By 20 weeks he looked even more like a big baby, and made lots of his own decisions, and that is 2nd trimester, when you find out if it's a boy or girl. If people argue the embryo part and it not being a person when it looks kind of blobbish, I won't agree from my moral standpoint but can understand why it's not thought of as a baby yet. The more it looks like a baby, no matter how small, to me it shouldn't matter whether it can fully survive outside of the womb to be given rights. There are babies born that have to go right to incubators and some people stay on machines their whole life, why are they different than a baby using their mom's body to live?

I am trying to talk in a scientific way not just from a moral standpoint. If being able to survive on one's own is the reason people use for when it's a "person", what about those who depend on a machine their entire lives, they aren't "viable" humans on their own and don't have normal functioning, but they have human rights.

If I look at this definition for viable:

(webster)

1: capable of living; especially : having attained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother's womb <a viable fetus>2: capable of growing or developing <viable seeds> <viable eggs>3 a: capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately <viable alternatives> b: capable of existence and development as an independent unit <the colony is now a viable state> c (1): having a reasonable chance of succeeding <a viable candidate> (2): financially sustainable <a viable enterprise>

There are a lot of people who are not capable of existing without medicines or machinery. Why are they different than a fetus in the womb? When a baby is first born, they will also die if no one feeds them. They aren't capable of surviving as a fully independent person. They still can't feed themselves or change their own diapers. They still are fully dependent on another human to take care of them or else they will die. Instead of using my blood as a source of nutrients to grow, they need milk. So those are the kinds of questions I have for the argument of viability.

I would suggest you are trying to bring absolutes into a situation where absolutes have no merit.

For example, if human rights start at the moment that an egg and a sperm conjoin then you have to consider many more currently acceptable behaviours and eliminate them, or at least try to.

It would also result in some very involved legal cases when the rights of the mother conflict with the rights of the foetus - even in cases when the mother and foetus would die if the pregnancy is allowed to continue.

It would also lead to the scenarios that six has touched on.

If you truly want the results that you want which are very low abortion rates, the best way forward is not to try to ban abortion, but to educate, educate, educate. Educate all effectively the effective methods of birth control. Educate effectively emotional and sexual relationships and educated effectively what being a parent entails. Abortion prevention is much more effective when it is something people avoid because they want to than trying to legislate against.

I think that's about right - there is no assumption that a person must or even will have an abortion. If you practice safe sex - its an option you'll never face or have to consider. The debate is backwards on this issue - because we're fixated on banning a medical procedure to the exclusion of the wider issues of education and responsibility.

6, its backwards on a great deal of issues. As a society we need to start being able to collectively think critically a little more. Don't fixate so much on the symptom, dammit. Treat the damn disease.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

At the least it would help to stop viewing this subject through the lens of grotesque sentimentality.

[HAL 9000 96]

At the least it would help to stop viewing this subject through the lens of grotesque sentimentality.

Correct. As it is a legal argument... perhaps the discussion would be further enriched by having actual definitions that can be used to treat the legality of the procedure as well as being constitutionally in agreement with the rest of the US Constitution.

[almaty 19]

The problem for McCain, however, is that he excoriated then-Gov. George W. Bush during a 2000 debate for not being willing to make this change to the platform, and Democrats are salivating at the prospect of arguing, in the words of one strategist, "that another four years of Bush begins with another four years of Bush's platform

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The irony is that Bush's position wasn't particularly consistent in the first place. He made a big deal about "culture of life" issues when it came to Stem Cell Research or Terry Schiavo, but as Texas Governor he actually signed the Futile Care Bill into law.

Social issues are one of those areas of politics where a lot of pandering goes on...

[MichelleN 0]

I've read through this whole thread and it really is quite interesting. But lately, I've been having conflicted emotions about the abortion issue. Before I became pregnant, I was 100% pro-choice. If a woman felt an abortion was necessary, so be it. But ever since I've had my baby, I'm really having a hard time understanding how someone could want to go through with an abortion. I realize now that it's more 'real' to me because I've gone through pregnancy and childbirth and that is probably what's causing my confusion. But still...I consider myself pro-choice, albeit a bit less staunch. But one thing I've always wondered is.....if it does become illegal then what?

Is it a crime? Will you criminally prosecute a woman who attempts to or succeeds in having a back-alley abortion? Jail time? Fines? Community service? What? Because any punishment I can think of seems completely ridiculous. Putting a pregnant woman in jail? Forcing her to go through a pregnancy she didn't want PLUS being in jail? Seems inhumane to me. Fines? What about people who have little to no money? How are they to care for the baby they're now forced to carry if they have to put out huge amounts of cash as punishment? And community service...uh...yeah that's a real deterrent

I've always loved the quote from the movie Birdcage, wherein it's suggested that a punishment for abortion is to kill the mother. " Oh, I know what you're going to say. 'If you kill the mother, the fetus dies too.' But the fetus is going to be aborted anyway, so why not let it go down with the ship? "

[IAMX 3,055]

Michelle, sometimes life is simply too tough to bring a baby into the world, no matter how beautiful it is. Some people simply cannot either give a baby what it needs, or cannot go through with a pregnancy as they cannot afford the time off work (during term or afterwards, given some companies really don't give any realistic amount of maternal leave), or whatever. Unfortunately people make bad choices in life. Everyone. It means a potential life (I say potential because regardless of some people's beliefs of when life begins, ultimately it's survivability depends on one person, not the government or anyone else) may be gone. Government makes decisions which kill innocent people, and we rationalize that with unfortunate casualties of war. However, we try to romanticize the normal process of conception that's been going on for millions of years in the history of our fellow ** sapiens, and the religious mindset enters in that they cherrypick what life they actually find to be worth saving. Save the life of a baby, kill a criminal who is guilty in court of murder, kill people in war. Ideologues have no place when it comes to the rights of others, and logically/biologically, without the mother's body to nurture the baby, there is no baby.

I agree about the slippery slope of what happens if conservatives get their way and Roe/Wade is gone to the wayside. It WILL result in back alley abortions again, and the black market abortion procedures, despite the laws being made. Unlike the slippery slope provided of gay marriages, that they will marry animals, and 500 women, this slippery slope was happening for who-knows-how-long before Roe/Wade came up to allow women to expel a baby from their body in safety. Women who truly want an abortion will NOT sit there and stop and think like conservatives about their subjective views of the sanctity of life, they will become more desperate to get rid of it. Have we not learned from history in these regards?

So it looks to me like conservatives wishing to push pro-life nonsense upon women (or other women) need to pull their heads out of their ### and follow the agnostic mantra similar to that which are in laws regarding marriages, regarding relationships, regarding friendships, regarding methods of sex, types of jobs one works, pretty much every facet of life, which is, if you don't like it, don't have it. When something takes away your rights, you can ###### and whine. Until then, simply offending your beliefs by a person having an abortion (and consider it drastically affects THEM, not you) is not enough of a reason to take your subjective views as anything relevant to me, or anyone else who doesn't partake to your beliefs. I'm really tired of hypocrite religious people trying to push their beliefs upon others, especially in places where they are the ones who need improvement first. Gay marriage is one, abortion is another. They need to worry about controlling and improving their own lives before trying to institute their beliefs into others lives. Then they'll be taken slightly more seriously, because I sure as hell don't take them seriously with this ultra-judgmental, ultra-hypocritical nonsense.

Edited August 27, 2008 by SRVT

[zqt3344 21]

Like what for example? Prince Harry and Larry or whatever their names are?

Same old guff.

You'd think people would worry about more important things.

[HAL 9000 96]

I've read through this whole thread and it really is quite interesting. But lately, I've been having conflicted emotions about the abortion issue. Before I became pregnant, I was 100% pro-choice. If a woman felt an abortion was necessary, so be it. But ever since I've had my baby, I'm really having a hard time understanding how someone could want to go through with an abortion. I realize now that it's more 'real' to me because I've gone through pregnancy and childbirth and that is probably what's causing my confusion. But still...I consider myself pro-choice, albeit a bit less staunch. But one thing I've always wondered is.....if it does become illegal then what?

Is it a crime? Will you criminally prosecute a woman who attempts to or succeeds in having a back-alley abortion? Jail time? Fines? Community service? What? Because any punishment I can think of seems completely ridiculous. Putting a pregnant woman in jail? Forcing her to go through a pregnancy she didn't want PLUS being in jail? Seems inhumane to me. Fines? What about people who have little to no money? How are they to care for the baby they're now forced to carry if they have to put out huge amounts of cash as punishment? And community service...uh...yeah that's a real deterrent

I've always loved the quote from the movie Birdcage, wherein it's suggested that a punishment for abortion is to kill the mother. " Oh, I know what you're going to say. 'If you kill the mother, the fetus dies too.' But the fetus is going to be aborted anyway, so why not let it go down with the ship? "

Now there's an interesting form of population control to appease those that notice.

Ironically I am pro-choice yet- if I were a woman- I'd most likely NOT have the procedure done unless it was an absolute necessity.

Every parent should hypothetically love their children and yes... you are most likely biased by having a child and the blessings it brings. It should preclude, however, in the strictest legal sense... an imposition upon others that do not wish to carry a fetus to term.

[MichelleN 0]

Now there's an interesting form of population control to appease those that notice.

Ironically I am pro-choice yet- if I were a woman- I'd most likely NOT have the procedure done unless it was an absolute necessity.

Every parent should hypothetically love their children and yes... you are most likely biased by having a child and the blessings it brings. It should preclude, however, in the strictest legal sense... an imposition upon others that do not wish to carry a fetus to term.

Oh I completely agree that my feelings shouldn't bias my original stance on the issue. I still am pro-choice but now I am able to see with a bit more understanding how some people would find the procedure 'wrong'. Having gone through pregnancy and childbirth I can absolutely not even fathom the thought of FORCING someone to endure that when they don't want the child at all. My experience was about normal but I know that for some women it can be an absolutely horrible experience. Why force someone to go through with it, and have them grow to despise the child before it's even born? How is that good for the child? And honestly, if you're going to force every mother who ever gets pregnant to give birth, you're going to have a HUGE increase in the number of children put up for adoption, not even counting the ones that will be abandoned or worse at birth. So I guess everyone who's pro-life needs to make room in their life to take in one or two of the children they forced to be born.