Just wondering: why are you pro-choice?

[NoodleBoy]

I'd been on the fence before, but the tipping point for me was hearing the horror stories of back-alley procedures. Learning other things since then has just reinfored it.

[Dover]

1. Pro-choice is about choices for women

You can be pro-choice but NOT choose to abort and instead choose other options such as adoption. That's the major difference for me, as a woman.

[TaleWgnDg]

51. I am pro-choice: why?

1. My daughter is not a forced breeder.
2. My wife is not a forced breeder.
3. My mother is not a forced breeder.
4. My sisters are not forced breeders.
5. GOVERNMENT SHOULD NEVER FORCE ANY WOMAN TO BREED.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



.

[eleonora]

2. I'm not pro-abortion but I'm pro-choice.

In my opinion the choice should ultimately be the one of the woman. I'd like to have a profiling/demographic on exactly who claims to be 'pro-life'...that would be enlightening. How much they earn, if they are religous or not, who they are...

I had one myself, and it was because I was in very bad shape financially and I didn't want to have to carry it to term, so I could raise a kid victim of my lack of financial stability, and eventually without a dad (my b/f was an alcoholic egotistic fucker who prefered to go out drinking than to help me with this)..I understand some would rather give it up to adoption but that's just not me. I would have gone insane.

Now I'm back in school and graduating with a college degree. I hope to start a family someday, but in a stable environment.

So this is why I am pro-choice.

[Dover]

4. Well the argument is being twisted so that if you ARE pro-choice

the rightwing is depicting you as pro-abortion.

[eleonora]

6. yes, and that's just not right

every woman's story is different, but I strongly believe abortion should be at last resort, and trust me, it was for me. I was suicidal for a while and without meds too because it was too expensive. For the right-wingers it seems as if they see the world through rose-colored glasses.

[TomClash]

13. Here's an analogy

If pro-choice is pro-abortion, then pro-gun is pro-murder.

[Cupcake1728]

142. PRO-gun

Notice: those who are "pro-gun" support the RIGHT to CHOOSE to own a gun, not guns themselves.

I am pro-gambling. This means I support the right of others to waste their money however they want to. I also hate gambling and wish no one would gamble, but I respect that I cannot control hjow others use their money. By your logic, I am also "pro-choice". Pro-X, in American political discourse, means pro-right-to-X.

[TruthNik]

162. Anarchist

Cupcake,

By your logic, you would support the right for child rape even though you were personally against it. You would support the right of someone to harm one your family members even though you were personally against it? I'm using these examples to illustrate the flaws in your reasoning.

Plug some different words into your argument, "Personally I support slavery, but I wouldn't own one myself."

Is this truly how you see yourself? Even if right now you don't see an embryo as a human being, you certainly recognize that it is a destructive act - an act of violence against a "thing." That "thing" happens to grow into a child.

I apologize if I'm twisting or mis-interpreting your reasoning. If I've read you wrong, please clarify.

[uppityperson]

164. "That "thing" happens to grow into a child."??

Am I right in thinking you are one of those who also see a bowl of milk, eggs, butter, sugar and flour as a "potential" cake?

I would welcome you to DU, but after reading your 3 posts here, you seem to be very much against the choice of a legal abortion.

[TruthNik]

168. Still Welcome?

Hi UppityPerson,

I hope this isn't a kumbya campfire for only like-minded people, I'm hoping for reasoned discussion.

May I ask a question: "Why would a woman have an abortion if she's not pregnant?"

Just to help you out, here's the definitions from merriam-webster:

abortion: the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.

embryo: the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception

pregnant: containing a developing embryo, fetus, or unborn offspring within the body

What part of this "cake" is potential? Please - rational, reasoned responses only.

[uppityperson]

169. You can and did ask a question.

"why would a woman have an abortion if she's not pregnant?"

Because asparagus isn't usually purple?

Makes as much sense as your question.

Now, a question for you. Do you believe women should have the right to chose a legal abortion rather than just a back alley one?

As far as the "cake" goes, that is in reply to your comment: "That "thing" happens to grow into a child." As with the cake ingredients, no, it doesn't always "happen to grow into a child".

[TruthNik]

173. Puppy Dog or Whale?

Hi uppityperson,

What else has a human embryo grown into in the mothers womb? Please, an honest answer would suffice here.

I'll respectfully answer your second question, but I'd like to hear your answer on this point first.

Sincerely,
TruthNik

[uppityperson]

175. That question makes no sense.

try again. And answer the one you didn't. Do you believe women should have the right to chose a legal abortion rather than just a back alley one?

Furthermore, joining DU only to post anti-choice rhetoric in a topic asking why you are pro-choice seems a bit odd. Rather along the line of a disruptor than someone who actually wants to follow the rules and have a discussion of why they are pro-choice.

[uppityperson]

207. I know you are TS'd, but wanted to answer anyway. Hydatidiform mole. Info & picture (warning)

http://www.obgyn.net/women/women.asp?page=/women/articles/molarpreg_dah

Molar pregnancies are an uncommon and very frightening complication of pregnancy. The formal medical term for a molar pregnancy is “hydatidiform mole.” Simply put, a molar pregnancy is an abnormality of the placenta (afterbirth), caused by a problem when the egg and sperm join together at fertilization. The following is a brief review of this complicated subject.

Types of Molar Pregnancy
There are two types of molar pregnancy, complete and partial. Complete molar pregnancies have only placental parts (there is no baby), and form when the sperm fertilizes an empty egg. Because the egg is empty, no baby is formed. The placenta grows and produces the pregnancy hormone, called HCG, so the patient thinks she is pregnant. Unfortunately, an ultrasound (sometimes called a sonogram) will show that there is no baby, only placenta. A partial mole occurs when 2 sperm fertilize an egg. Instead of forming twins, something goes wrong, leading to a pregnancy with an abnormal fetus and an abnormal placenta. The baby has too many chromosomes and almost always dies in the uterus. Thus, molar pregnancies are “accidents of nature” that are not anyone’s fault. They are not caused by behavior, but they are more common in older women and in certain geographic locations. Also, although most molar pregnancies occur after a miscarriage, some occur after an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy or even a normal delivery.... (much more@ link)

[krazykikikat]

312. My two cents

The question isn't what else it could grow into... that possibility is quite gruesome and also beside the point.
The point is that it's NOT a baby -- yet. I like the cake analogy, the only difference is that cake ingredients will stay cake ingredients if we leave them alone (with the exception of possible mold growth). An embryo will turn into a baby if we leave it alone. There is a subtle but consequential difference between deciding not to start a process, and deciding to end a process.

Still, I stand firm with my reason: I am pro-choice because the alternative is a slew of horrifying home-jobs and miserable women and children. I also justify abortion because of the fact that an embryo is not a human being. It is an organism, yes. But it's more akin to a parasite than an actual person. The gravity of the situation only exists because of what it could become -- and I'm not one to deny that potential except under the most extreme of circumstances. Would I ever have an abortion? Most likely not. But I absolutely support the right to choose. As much as we want it to be about the potential of a child, law will never (I hope) put the rights of an organism dependent on its host's body over the rights of said host. A woman deserves the right to do what she wants with her body. It is unfortunate that this will sometimes result in the harm or death of another living thing. In a perfect world, I would have there be a system where only women who proved themselves worthy of the right to abort would be allowed to -- say, if she was raped, it was an accident, the baby would be defected, or she might die if she was to go full term. Unfortunately, that would be a tough system to enforce, and it still leaves the possibility of women taking matters into their own hands.
So, the only viable option I see is to keep abortion legal.

[musette_sf]

318. "In a perfect world,

I would have there be a system where only women who proved themselves worthy of the right to abort would be allowed to -- say, if she was raped, it was an accident, the baby would be defected, or she might die if she was to go full term.":

FAIL

In a perfect world, a woman's right to privacy in her healthcare decisions would be respected. Period.

[uppityperson]

319. You mean all those women who got pregnant on purpose then decided to have abortion couldn't?

"In a perfect world, I would have there be a system where only women who proved themselves worthy of the right to abort would be allowed to -- say, if she was raped, it was an accident, the baby would be defected, or she might die if she was to go full term."

WTF? You were doing ok up until that. "women who proved themselves worthy of the right to abort". Doesn't look any better reading it again.

[Jax]

322. You nailed it uppityperson

it doesn't look any better reading it again.

This one appears transparent, we will see.

[BlueInMass]

303. I am pro choice and pro gun because it's the same agruement

I don't own a gun, probably never will, and didn't have an abortion and never will. It is important to have the choice, though. That is freedom.

[Scout]

304. "I am pro choice and pro gun because it's the same agruement"

fail

[krazykikikat]

314. How is that fail?

Because of the spelling error?
If not, read the post this person is actually replying to. Being pro-gun doesn't mean you're pro-murder, the same as pro-choice doesn't mean pro-abortion. If you want to argue that point, go ahead. But "fail" isn't exactly an argument.

[Scout]

317. i shouldn't have to explain it.....

:eyes:

women controlling what happens to and inside their OWN bodies is not at all like being allowed to own a gun.

[uppityperson]

320. It's dead.

[renaissanceguy]

37. I agree

that every woman's story is different. That's our best defense against the RW who tries to put it in black and white terms.

[sweetbutterfly]

86. last resort

Why should an abortion be a "last resort"? If it is nothing other than ridding the body of a clump of cells, it seems to me that there is nothing wrong with abortion being a "first choice".

[noamnety]

87. Simple reason for that

It's commonly thought of as a last resort because it's more expensive and more traumatic physically on a woman's body than preventing an unwanted pregnancy in the first place. In some cases, you are right, it's not really a last resort (implying a birth control failure). It's simply a choice.

Me, I choose to go the cheap route that doesn't involve surgery.

[kaylynwright]

289. the "cheap route"

The cheap route? If a woman does not ever want to get pregnant and begins having sex around 20 years old, she will need to be on birth control until menopause. So maybe 25 years at least? And you call this cheap? If hormonal birth control were free, maybe then you could say that this were the "cheap" route. An abortion is much cheaper than the costs of raising a child.

[uppityperson]

291. welcome to DU

[uppityperson]

290. "t's more expensive and more traumatic physically on a woman's body than preventing an unwanted preg

"It's more expensive and more traumatic physically on a woman's body than preventing an unwanted pregnancy in the first place"

That depends. Say a first trimester abortion costs $200-400 (used to be 200, am sure they cost more now). OCs (birth control pills) range from 0-$30/month, depending on where you get them, how subsidized they are, insurance, etc. So being on birth control pills for one yr could run up to $480, if you paid full price.

Now, about how physically traumatic abortions vs OCs are, it depends on your age, whether you smoke, other health issues, etc, as OCs can cause blood clots, leading to strokes or heart attacks or pulmonary emoblisms.

True that condoms and foam are cheaper and most likely less traumatic though, unless a woman has issues with her cervix and having stuff there might influence that (precancerous cells, etc).

Of course, Plan B (high dose of OCs) taken within 72 hours of intercourse can be fairly inexpensive and not so hard on your body (again assuming that your body is ok taking them.

[Undercover Owl]

89. you got me there, Sweetbutterfly.

Next time YOU get pregnant, go ahead and make abortion YOUR first choice.

Is that what you wanted to hear? Sweetbutterfly, why don't you just go to a anti-choice site, where you will meet like minded people.

[sweetbutterfly]

90. like minded

Oh, this is only for like-minded people...not open for discussion or debate???? Who's drinking kool-aid now? And I'm not anti-choice.

[iverglas]

93. and there's a question on the table

"And I'm not anti-choice."

The question posed by originator of the thread you're posting in is:

"Why are you pro-choice?"

And your answer is ...?

[iverglas]

96. still waiting ...

"Oh, this is only for like-minded people...not open for discussion or debate????
... And I'm not anti-choice."

You sound remarkably like Dorothy Parker! --

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

... Oh, DU's for like-minded people you say,
A place that must speak with one voice;
And freepers are things that ne'er lead you astray,
And me, I am not anti-choice.

(With apologies to Dorothy Parker and anyone who might baselessly assume that anyone is talking about him/her.)

[iverglas]

110. oh well

I guess that fine bit of doggerel of mine was actually an epitaph.


Oh, DU's for like-minded people you say,
A place that must speak with one voice;
And freepers are things that ne'er lead you astray,
And me, I am not anti-choice.

RIP.

[Undercover Owl]

111. pizza party!

I predicted the demise of that one. I posted that SB was a troll, and wasn't going to last long, which made SB reply a really nasty response, and had my post removed.

Well, HA! Turns out I was right!

[uppityperson]

208. This is a reply to an ironic post. eom

[Iris]

211. wow.

[Mackenzie]

36. Your response is the most interesting one so far.

I believe that abortion should be legal because in general I believe that a woman should be allowed to control her own body.

If she wants to get an abortion, then so be it.

If she wants to get a tattoo or a piercing, then so be it.

If she wants to smoke marijuana, whether it be medical or recreational, then so be it.

And, to quote from your post, if she wants to have sex with "an alcoholic egotistic fucker," then so be it.

[Liberty Belle]

40. You're in the majority

The #1 reason women give for having abortions is financial need, so you're not alone.

Did you know that since Bush took office, the number of abortions has gone way up--and so have poverty rates and job losses?
Under Clinton, by contrast, with the economy booming, abortion rates went down.

The best way to reduce the number of abortions isn't to ban them, which winds up killing women. Instead, enact policies to provide good educations and good-paying jobs for women and their husbands or partners. Provide affordable child care options, too. If we lift women out of poverty, more women in your situation will be able to keep their children.

I also condemn those who would force poor women to bear children, but who don't seem to care about providing for those children after they are born. Don't these so-called Christians know that the Bible condemns hypocrites?

[caseymoz]

197. I think the number of abortions per year probably correlates strongly with the economy

I believe women will abort more, also, depending on how hopeful they are about the future.

So, number of abortions in a year might be taken as a kind of economic measure.

[uppityperson]

199. How about the other, yet similar issue. In times of poor economy,

people will have "oh I feel bad let's f" sex, and not focus on contraception because everything is bad anyways, maybe? Then there is a cost of contraception that perhaps people can't afford. I know, getting pregnant costs more, but for those who like to gamble.

[c4550]

55. I'm with eleonora on this issue

I agree with you eleonora. Abortion is a painful subject. You did what you had to do. Though I am torn by abortion, I think the government should stay out of the matter. I hope everything works out well for you :)

[Yehonala]

294. Good points

I fully agree. Abortion is a hideous decision to make which is why we need to be as supportive of someone who chooses to make that choice. The woman has to live with it, it's better to be supportive instead of demonizing her.

[thedailyshow]

3. I am pro-choice because I want women to have the choice

in deciding whether they want to be pregnant or not. I would want pro-lifers to have that choice if they have a child with horrible birth defects or if they have an ectopic pregnancy which could threaten their life. By taking the choice away from people like pro-lifers, it would be horrible for them to undergo those circumstances which I have mentioned, and I would not want to wish that on anyone. I want women to have the ability to change their mind, without having to fear the consequences of doing so. That is why I am pro-choice, because I believe that since women bear the responsibility of pregnancy, that they have the right to bear the responsibility for their own health above that of their child.

[billyoc]

5. Because I'm not a woman.

I try to err on the side of caution when stripping people of their rights, whenever possible. :)

[Dover]

8. Yeah, I'm guessing men wouldn't want the gov. telling them what they

could or couldn't do with their bodies. If men had to keep/raise the babies they fathered, I wonder how many fewer pregnancies there would be?

[libodem]

117. if men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrement

[Name removed]

151. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

149. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scout]

153. what are you doing here?

the UNBORN are not persons, and have no rights.

[Neoma]

7. Mostly because Everyone has the right to choose

As for pro-life,they aren't really pro-life....

They want wars,yet they think its wrong to kill some birth defected baby or think its wrong to abort if the women is going to die.
Thats not about life,thats about control over women.
And they blow up abortion Clients because they were going to kill unborn baby's? ha! they don't think about the 'life' thats in the abortion clients ether. you know ..the ones that actually walk and talk.

pro-life my ass!

[RubyDuby in GA]

98. They are not pro-life, they are pro-birth

There is a huge difference in the two and it's high time we start calling them on their shit.

[Cupcake1728]

148. Not everyone who is anti-abortion

is pro-life. Some are.

Google "Consistent Life Ethic".

[GoBlue]

9. I believe that a woman has the right

to refuse to create a child she doesn't want. The world has too many unwanted children (and adults) as it is.

I dare say the world would be a better place if Osama bin Laden's mother had aborted him. And I wouldn't be the least bit concerned for his or her soul.

[LynnTheDem]

10. Because what I do with MY body is MY business...

...and what YOU do with YOUR body is YOUR business.

Because a QUALIFIED DOCTOR knows better than ANY POLITICIAN what's best for my body or your body.

Because I'm not forcing ANYONE to have an abortion because of my beliefs; but the anti-abortionists are trying to FORCE EVERYONE to their beliefs.

Because too many women have fought & have died getting women the right to choose.

Because otherwise women & girls will again be dying on back-ally butcher's tables from twisted wire coathangers, or from suicide, both of which are why abortion was made medically legal in the first place.

Because forcing a raped female to carry that rapist's child against her will is horrendous torture that no decent civilized nation would stand for.

Because forcing a young child pregnant from incest to carry that child against her will is horrendous torture that no decent civilized nation would stand for.

Because allowing a woman to die from complications, rather than abort the child, is horrendous and something that no decent civilized nation would stand for.

[Leilani]

11. Because I am conservative on the issue.

The government was NEVER meant to be able to intrude on a women's personal medical business.

It used to be conservative to get the gov't out of our lives. It seems they have changed positions, but I haven't.

The gov't has no right to tell me how to handle my eye decisions: should I wear contacts or glasses?

My medical decisions are my business, along with consultation of my doctor.

And you better be sure that if men got pregnant & had babies, this issue would never have become a political football.

[Cooper]

80. good posting. and interesting point

about how the definitions of "conservative" have changed.

[krazykikikat]

315. Agreed

I am conservative on some issues and not on others. This is why there's really two plot lines, making a graph, to describe a person's political views. Liberal to conservative, and left to right. Actually there are several different spectra involving different axes...
But anyway, I'm one that believes that the government should get involved in some things, the economy for instance. In that way my thoughts don't align with modern conservatives. I also believe that the government should NOT have any say over abortions, also, in theory, a conservative belief. However, in this way I also differ from the beliefs of most modern conservatives. It is rather odd. I suppose I should just say that I differ from the ideas of Republicans; after all, that's why we have parties, and don't just describe ourselves as liberal or conservative.

[izzie]

12. I am up to a point.

After the first three/five months I get to wonder about the child but I think it is first a women/doctor thing on health reason. It is just bad for birth control or picking sex of child but I do not know what one can do about it. Since things were done that are so bad to women and the rich just had them and called it some thing else I say the laws are fine as they are.Good birth control information early is the best. I believe the Dutch have made that a sure thing. I understand they do not have un-married girls having un-wanted children.

[sherilocks]

14. I'm pro-choice because....

For more reasons than I can write down here. But here's a few, general and personal reasons.

1. It's a medical and personal decision, not the government's decision or anyone else's for that matter.

2. Every woman has her own reason, and for even DUers to think that they know why Ms. X had an abortion and should not have had it, is just plain wrong and judgmental.

3. I gave birth to four children. Except for a few remarkably strong women, each birth takes a greater toll on your body and has a profound affect on your ability to be a mother to the children you have already birthed.

4. Personally, and medically a truth, if a woman suffers from post-partum depression, it gets worse with each birth. By the time I had my fourth, my PPD was so bad that I could not adequately function as a mother to all four of my children and my husband had to take a personal leave from work to care for them.

5. My mother was raped and forced to bear the child. She gave my half-sister up for adoption. I did not learn the circumstances of her ensuing mental instability until I was much older and too late to salvage the effect it had on my childhood. It ruined her life and subsequently had a profoundly negative effect on mine.

6. Birth control fails. It did in my case. I did not have a fifth child and opted for an abortion and tubal ligation. My husband actually had to sign a paper "allowing" me to have the procedure.

7. If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one. But leave the decision up to each woman to make.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. I know people who were raped

and who became pregnant as a result. No other crime victim is forced to allow a criminal to benefit from his crime.

When I was very young, I talked my way out of such a situation (thank God I was underage and that meant something at the time!), and the memory has effected me every since, because I think, there but for the grace of God....

[Safya]

307. +1

How can they force raped women to have a baby from rape.

[xchrom]

16. if you believe that a woman's body is absolutely her own

then you believe that what she chooses to do with it is her business only.
there can be no equality between the sexes if a woman does not own her own body.
the way conservatives think about women via the abortion issue is light years from believing that a womans body is her own.

[choicevoice]

17. Almost without thought I have always been pro-choice

because of the history of women in this country. Women have had to claw every step of the way to obtain rights automatically given men. The right to vote, to own property, to control their own money, the right to control their own reproduction, etc.

Then my daughter was raped. Abducted by a man in a ski mask who held a knife to her throat. That was many years ago and she is fine today but that is when the awful truth hit me. If she had would not have had the option at the hospital to insure she would not have to live through a pregnancy due to rape what would her life be like. The audacity of people (anti abortion proponents) at the time who without invitation tried to tell me that if she were pregnant that the only moral thing to do was to carry the fetus to term. After all she could just give it up for adoption! Talk about piss me off. Then I became an activist defending clinics throughout the south during the summer sieges by the anti abortion on womens clinics.

I will fight with everything I have in me to make sure that Roe V. Wade will not be overturned.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

127. Thanks for posting that and so sorry you had to deal with the

insensitivity of fanatics

[Phillycat]

18. Because being anti-choice means being anti-woman.

That's the simplest way to put it.

[Name removed]

143. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uncommon]

309. :applause:

[Dookus]

19. I'm pro-choice

because it's the ONLY reasonable position.

If you outlaw abortion, then what do you do to women who are pregnant and don't want to be? Imprison them until they give birth? Punish them after the abortion? Do you imprison the doctor?

Abortion has ALWAYS occurred, and will continue to occur regardless of the legality of it. Let's acknowledge that and make it as safe as possible.

I also don't believe in a "soul", and most of the arguments against abortion are religious-based. I reject those arguments. A fetus is not a person.

I also believe that the so-called pro-life movement is in fact, an anti-sex movement. I was a clinic escort at three different clinics for a few years, and I became convinced that the anti's position is simply that "No sex act should go unpunished."

[Djinn]

20. I beleive a woman is a person

and a fetus is a fetus.

I don't beleive in forcing women to give birth, I think the anti-choice movement is more about controlling women and punishing them for having sex than it is about "life".

&

Women have always had and will continue to have abortions, if they can't get legal and safe ones they'll go to illegal and unsafe ones - much the same reasons I'm for legalising drugs, you can't ever stop it happening, it's a personal choice and we might as well make sure people are safe. My grandmother had an illegal abortion - she'd be horrified to hear some of the recent comments by male politicians in Australia if she was still alive.

[animuscitizen]

44. Proud to be radically pro-choice and agree with you 100%...

"I believe a woman is a person and a fetus is a fetus."--Thank you.

Like an amoeba, the fetus has no feelings, no desires, no consciousness. The mere fact that it is a living organism does not give it a moral claim. Those that believe that it deserves a moral claim are basing that view on religion--not science. They are entitled to that view, but this view should never be imposed upon others.

In considering abortion laws, The Court focused exclusively on the Fourteenth Amendment's liberty clause and the Bill of Rights, ignoring another important fact about abortion: only women have them. Yet any law or judicial decision concerning abortion cannot help affecting men and women differently. But besides protecting liberty, the Fourteenth Amendment also provides that persons not be denied equal protection of the laws, which now includes discrimination on the basis of race or sex. This point suggests another perspective from which to view the entire abortion debate. First, however, we need to consider the meaning of equality that finds expression in the equal protection clause.

[Djinn]

48. Unless people are willing to force women to give birth

against their will I don't know how they can be anti-choice. They usually waffle on about giving people options, increasing birth control or sex ed or better government welfare for single mothers etc which is all very well and good but at the end of the day there will STILL be women who get pregnant and do not wish to have a child - unless people are willing to force that woman to give birth like some kind of farm animal then they should shut up.

To be honest I really couldn't care less if science one day said "yes the fetus can feel" - I KNOW the woman can.

[Name removed]

144. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scout]

154. a fetus is NOT a person, and has no rights.

a fetus is INSIDE the uterus of a woman. a woman is not inside the uterus of anyone.

[Dufaeth]

216. Didnt you know....

The earth is an egg in the uterus of god?

[Scout]

217. god has no uterus n/t

[Nestea]

21. Because it's important for people to have a choice.

What right do we have to strip people of their rights?

[slackmaster]

22. Choice is always good, and my mom told me about pre-Roe days

We do NOT want to go back to the patchwork of laws that existed before Roe v. Wade.

The situation was horrible for women here in California. If they wanted an abortion they had to choose between going to an underground operation that provided no followup support for complications, or to a Mexican doctor, or to another state.

I'm pro-choice for the same reason I almost always go with the side of individual liberty: Freedom of choice and self-determination are the cornerstones of our society.

[Jackie97]

23. I was won by rationality...

Just like McCorvey was supposedly "won by love".

When I was a kid, I was pro-choice because my big sister was. When I turned 14, I turned anti-choice because I got into fundamentalism. However, my pastor talked me into being for abortion being allowed in life threatening cases (all he had to do was give his opinion, and I was won over like sheep).

Then, a friend of mine was in a relationship of domestic violence. The abuse was mostly psychological, but the stress from the abuse nearly killed her in her pregnancy. That got me thinking about whether she should have an abortion if she just got pregnant again with him in her life. Next, I also went to college and studied what an embryo and fetus was actually like (outside the anti-abortion propoganda I was used to). That got me slowing dropping the concept that it was a person. I also took Sociology courses. I would look up abortion in the books, and find ideas that most of the time made me come to the conclusion that anti-abortion laws were not the way to solve the "abortion problem", that it would only lead out to illegal abortions.

Meanwhile, I "met" somebody online who made it his duty to convert me. I made it clear to him that he would have to present me with unbiased sources (because I would not trust anything else). He did a lot of that because he was older than me and realized that I had a real potential of becoming pro-choice with age and with more knowledge about things. He also realized I was already considering becoming pro-choice before I even said I was considering it. In that phase of my becoming pro-choice, I was discovering that countries with less or no anti-abortion laws had fewer abortions than we did because they had fewer problems with poverty and certain other problems.

Then I got back to thinking about my friend in the Domestic Violence situation, and realized that I wished that she would have an abortion if she ever got pregnant again because I just didn't want her to die of having to wait for a doctor to declare her life in danger. I knew she would never have an abortion, but I realized then that a woman can be in a lot of situations where she badly needs an abortion and shouldn't have to go through politicians and courts to have to obtain one.

So, I passively became pro-choice. I still thought the embryo/fetus was a person though for a while. That changed in about a year or less when I finally admitted to myself that I didn't think the embryo/fetus was a person.

So, now I'm pro-choice. I don't have my beliefs because my big sister has them. I don't have them because my preacher says it is okay. I don't have them because of my religion in general. I don't have them because I was won by love.

I have my beliefs now because I researched the subject, looked at situations with others in real life, and because of people who were willing to answering some of my questions. I didn't always accept the answers that they gave. I picked out what answers I chose to believe were true (most of the time with research being done). In other words, I became pro-choice because it's actually what I believe in. I was won by rationality.

[Liberty Belle]

41. Your message gives us hope

It's so encouraging to know that someone who was once indoctrinated by religious dogma can be persuaded to take a rational approach.

There are simply too many different reasons that may compel a woman to seek an abortion, and it's wrong to force a one-size-fits-all law onto those who for whatever reason, don't feel up to handling the enormous responsibilities of motherhood. In a perfect world, more women might opt for adoption. But we can't force that. If we force women to give birth against their will, however, we are liable to wind up with more women keeping their children without the financial, emotional or psychological means to properly care for them. This could lead to suicide, neglect, or child abuse.

A woman's decision in these cases is between herself and God.

[Scout]

24. Because a woman is more than her uterus. n/t

[Hell Hath No Fury]

25. I am pro-choice because...

I don't believe the government has a right to make such a deeply personal decision for me. If they can make that kind of decision for me, what else can they decide for me? Where does it end? Can they tell me whether or not I can use birth control? That I can or cannot reproduce? That I must reproduce???

I am pro-choice. My choice, based on my personal spiritual beliefs, would be to not terminate a pregnancy if I were to get pregnant. And that is the essence of "choice".

[Chovexani]

26. Because I'm a woman

And I can make my own decisions about my own body. I don't need Big Brother or Big Daddy telling me what's good for me.

[Name removed]

152. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TruthNik]

163. Absolute Control?

Chovexani,

A person's control of their body is analagous to control of their voice in a movie theatre. One's rights stop when they infringe on another person. You absolutely have a right to be open to becoming pregnant or not - you make that choice when you engage in sex - 'protected' or not. Having sex typically causes babies to come into the world. No one forces you to engage in sex or abstain - that's your "choice." That being said, babies are unique persons - they have their own unique DNA, finger prints, and eye colors. Like freedom of speech, your rights end when they infringe on others - in this case, the rights of the child to live.

What are your thoughts?

[uppityperson]

165. At what point does "the child's" rights outweigh the woman's rights?

"No one forces you to engage in sex or abstain - that's your "choice.""

Rape.

At what point does the fetus' "right to live" outweigh the woman's rights?

What are your thoughts?

[TruthNik]

172. Let's look at the "extreme"

Hi uppityperson,

There are 2 victims in pregnancy originating with rape or incest: the child and the mother. The mother has a child inside her body that is not hers. The child will never have a loving father and likely not a loving birth-mother.

The act of rape or incest and the resulting pregnancy is horrible. Does this justify committing an additional act of violence some period of time later?

Let's take another example: my wife is murdered, and the perpetrator is sentenced to prison, then later released. Am I justified in killing the perpetrator after he's been released from prison?

Clearly the answer is "no" and the additional act of violence doesn't have the effect of "resolving" the first problem of my wife's murder - she would still be dead.

My assertion is that once a new being is created (moment of conception), BECAUSE it is a human being, it has an equal right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness - regardless of how it came into being.

There is no point where the life of the child is more valuable than the life of the mother - they are inherently equal.

What are your thoughts?

Respectfully yours,
TruthNik

[uppityperson]

174. Let's look at another couple examples

Woman 1 is pregnant and her doctor has told her she will suffer severe health issues if she tries to carry to term.

Woman 2 has been raped and is forced to carry a child to term. She hates the child, mistreats it, finally baby dies from shaken baby syndrome.

Should either of these women have the right to chose a legal medical abortion, or be forced to risk lives by either attempting to carry baby to term, getting a back alley abortion, or killing the infant? Must the horror of being raped carry the added horror of being forced to carry and give birth?

No, a single celled zygote is not a human being with an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as me.

What right does a potential have to endanger a living person?

[TruthNik]

176. Let's unpack them one at a time

Hi uppityperson,
There are at least 5 points brought up in your response above. Please be patient with the length of my response it will take to cover the main points.

Let's look at the case of woman 1 - she's told she will suffer severe health issues when carrying to term. When you say term, do you preclude a 24-week live delivery? For the sake of brevity, ignoring the potential if the doctor is wrong in his assessment (how often do they mis-identify the gender of the baby in sonograms!) A person would be choosing a certain evil - the taking of a human life - in the "hopes" of avoiding a complication. In this extreme instance, all medical efforts should be taken to allow the pregnancy to continue as long as possible. If the mothers health reaches a near breaking point, say 23-weeks of pregnancy, it would be acceptable to deliver the child - even though the child may well die. Let's go earlier, the mother is at a breaking point at 12-weeks in pregnancy. The child would certainly die - the act committed is treatment of the mother, the undesired side effect is that the child doesn't survive outside the womb. The childs death is not the intended consequence, it is a secondary effect of treating the mother - therefore, it is legitimate. Essentially, "First, do no harm." If you want a simple answer to woman 1, how about, "calculated risk."

Woman 2 - First question is "is she culpable for her actions?" Is she consciously aware of what she is doing? Are these the actions of a mentally ill person or a cruel person? If she's mentally ill and has not the faculty to understand what she's doing, she's not culpable for her actions. For conversation, let's say she's mildly depressed - she knows what she's doing is wrong, chose not to give the baby to someone who could care for the child, and she kills it anyways. This is an act of violence committed against an innocent person. Her actions infringed on the child's right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It's either murder or manslaughter...

In case 2, the woman is not "forced" to kill her child. If consciously aware, it was a choice. If not a choice e.g. mental illness. It is an unfortunate tragedy for both the mother and child.

You didn't adequately consider my response in the previous thread. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind - You haven't explained how a second act of violence resolves the first act of violence (see previous thread)? Please clarify.

Now the "potential life" point. At what point does a "potential life" have the same rights as you or I? If the answer is "the lives are equal" then that provides the answer to "What right does a potential have to endanger a living person?"

The question where we differ then boils down to "at what point is the undeveloped being have rights?" My assertion is that the child has and deserves the dignity of a human person from the moment of conception. Dignity is associated with humanity - at all stages of development. I believe what you are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is that at some point, a person or zygote (here's the definition: a cell formed by the union of two gametes ; broadly : the developing individual produced from such a cell)
GAINS rights as a human. When does a person "Gain" human dignity? The Nazi's didn't believe Jews had human dignity. Who assigns human dignity? I'd love to hear your response.

[uppityperson]

177. I am glad you are gone.

1) mis-identifying gender in a sonogram is a far different thing than mis-diagnosing eclampsia. Look that up, if you come back to read this. That comparison is foolish.
2) "mildly depressed" after being violently raped and impregnated. Right. No, the rapist infringed on her right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. "mildly depressed" my ass.

"at what point does a potential life have the same rights as you or I?" You stated it was at conception. I disagree. A zygote, a single cell, does not have the same rights as you or I and I will continue to fight and work to keep my rights more than a single cell.

Every sperm is not sacred. Every zygote is not sacred. Perhaps you wish for us to submit our menstrual blood for examination every month, maybe we should ritually burn/bury them since it was 1/2 a person?

As far as the Nazi thing, you lose. No, this zygote sized dot in parenthesis () is not equal to a "Jews". Or you. Or I.

I notice you did not get to answer the question about should a woman have a choice to a legal hygienic abortion or only an illegal unsafe back alley one. Best you be gone from here as you also did not answer why you thought it necessary to sign up on our forum merely to come spout your forced birthing anti-choice bs on a topic asking why you are pro-choice.

[Iris]

193. I read it.

Nice work! :)

[TheVelvetDonkey]

209. How many abortion cases are actually from rape?

I believe the overwhelming majority of abortions are chosen by women who simply change their minds or decide they don't want a child. The rape/incest/mother is going to die issues are to be considered for sure. Nobody wants someone to have a child FORCED upon them and their lives but the other reasons women get pregnant are from other choices they've made. If you don't want a pregnancy, take the necessary precautions. Abortion in most cases can be avoided with better choices to begin with.

[Scout]

210. blah, blah, blah, yadda yadda

simpleton

:eyes:

[Iris]

215. if the necessary precautions fail, then a child is forced on a woman

some women may not see it that way and decide to continue the pregnancy, but others may and they have the right to terminate the pregnancy.

[uppityperson]

167. My thought is you are a troll and won't be on DU long.

[WildClarySage]

27. Because

When I was in first grade, a classmate of mine died. I found out years later that she and her mother were victims of abuse from her father. What that little girl must have gone through was surely a fate worse than abortion.

Until sex is an act that ALWAYS occurs with the consent of both partners, abortion must remain safe and legal.

Until all children on Earth have safe, secure homes, abortion must remain safe and legal.

Until there is a form of birth control which works 100% of the time for all women, abortion must remain safe and legal.

Until sex education is taught with honesty and all students understand what can and can not prevent STD's and pregnancy, abortion must remain safe and legal.

Until excellent, affordable childcare is available to all families, abortion must remain safe and legal.

[csm]

28. these are all good

Lately I've been thinking of it in terms of what body part are men willing to give control to the government of forever?

[seaj11]

29. Several reasons

First of all, as a woman, I want control over my own body. While some pregnancies are simply accidents, I still want to be able to change the situation, if I choose. If I am raped, and I become pregnant, I don't think I would able to stand carrying the rapist's baby.
I remember when I was in ninth grade, and my political science teacher was a total fundie (oh, the irony!). He went on and on about how great Bush was, etc. Anyway, he was blabbing about how he disapproved of abortion, when he suddenly said, "If my daugher"--a picture of whom he kept on his desk--"was raped, I wouldn't want her to be carrying that sicko's baby. Well," he finished weakly. He had nothing left to say. It was almost funny, but mostly sad. I wondered what his daughter would think if she knew he mentioned her in this way.

Second of all, I don't think the government should--or can, rightfully--put limitations on the choices one makes regarding their body (unless, of course, those choices somehow harm someone else, which abortion wouldn't).

And lastly, even if abortion is illegal, women desperate to become "un-pregnant" would take desperate measures that might result in their death. Stories in which a woman cannot get access to a safe abortion, and submits herself to a procedure performed by someone who is not a medical professional, and dies or is seriously injured, are some of the saddest I've ever heard.

[recovering democrat]

30. Because it is my body not the government's.

Pro-choice does NOT mean "pro-abortion" which is what the anti-abortion folks would like to have us believe. Pro-choice simply means it is my choice, not the government's. Would I choose to have an abortion? None of your business; none of the government's business. Only the business of me, my doctor and my God.

I can agree with all the other reasons I read posted here but I just really find this subject so simple and so basic that the "short" answer is all I personally need. In fact, I used to actually be a Republican and they left me when they started this mess. And the funny thing is that I was never a one-issue voter before, and I don't have to be one now. What I found was that when I found out where a politician stood on abortion rights, I knew pretty much where that politician stood on almost everything and therefore, I could use this as a simple guide to figure out for whom to vote.

The Republicans used to actually be for reducing the intrusion of government into the personal lives of its citizens, and reducing the cost and complexity of government. Now they just want to dismantle anything they don't agree with while increasing the regulation of our personal lives. Anti-abortion also generally means (a) the Patriot Act is perfectly wonderful and justified, (b) marriage is "protected", (c) we will decide when and how you die, and many others where the government has no business sticking its nose. These other issues are equally offensive to me. Hence, the sign on my bumper that has been there since they started making them and is really in bad shape now - will stay there as long as it takes - "I Vote Pro-Choice"

[Name removed]

150. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kber]

31. Intellectually, I've always been pro-choice.

But this week, my husband and I are waiting for amnio results that will tell us whether the fetus I am carrying has a fatal birth defect or not. (Screened positive a few weeks ago, but am hopeful that it was a "false positive" result.) The last thing we need is some stranger telling us how to handle this already stressful situation. I'm quite sure that would send me right over the edge!

[legally blonde]

32. I'm pro-choice

for all the reasons listed above. It's my uterus and no one gets to tell me what to do with it.
So here's my personal reason. When I was in college, I worked during the summer as a phlebotomist in my dad's clinic. One day, a young girl came in for a pre-natal physical with the usual blood workup. Her parents were making her keep the baby. She was 11. No one should be forced to carry a child, especially at that age.

[RUDUing2]

33. Because I was born in 1961 and I knew and know women who

had *unplanned* pregnancies and had illegal abortions. Not something I ever want to hear of being the norm in the US again, esp. not as the mom of two daughters of childbearing age.

[Dark]

34. Pragmatism. Simply that.

If abortions are legal, pro-lifers know where to find the clinics. They can go to the clinics and convince women, NOT force them, but persuade them, to keep their child. It is the women's baby, it is her child, so it shouldn't be that hard to persuade her to keep the child. Any pro-lifer could volunteer and reach out, peacefully and amicably, to women going there and show them that their child is worth keeping. Why? BECAUSE THE PRO-LIFERS CAN FIND THE CLINIC AND THEREFORE FIND THE WOMEN

Now, let's say that it is illegal. The pro-lifers then try to find the women and convince them to go to keep their child. But they can't. They can't find them because there are no clinics, no Planned Parenthood. They cannot find the women who are going to do abortions. Thus, they cannot STOP the abortions. Even if there aren't any doctors, the women can do it themselves with a coat hanger. But they won't tell anyone.

Thus, IT IS BETTER TO HAVE IT LEGAL SO THE PRO-LIFERS CAN FIND THE WOMEN PLANNING TO HAVE AN ABORTION AND CONVINCE THEM NOT TO. IF IT IS ILLEGAL, THEN THEY CANNOT FIND THE WOMEN AND THUS CANNOT STOP THEM.

In other words, YOU CAN SAVE MORE LIVES BY KEEPING ABORTION LEGAL THAN ILLEGAL. At least they could, if the pro-lifers would do something besides sitting out side the clinic and chanting prayers.

I also believe its a womans choice, but the above arguement usually pins freepers into a corner.

[inmania]

35. individual rights and social policy

On an individual level, it's no one else's business whether a woman chooses to get an abortion or not.

On a social policy level, we have enough problems without deliberately bringing more unwanted children into the world. Safe, legal abortions should be readily available, with no parental consent necessary for teenage girls.

[Maat]

38. I had always been pro-choice ... and then ..

when I was almost 30, a close friend had an abortion very early on rather than have a life-long relationship with a man who had been very violent to her (because he would have visitation with their child). He later turned out to be a very violent drug-dealer. Thankfully, she was able to completely cut ties with him.

Then I found out that my mother's rich oilman boyfriend had made her have an abortion, while he was out spouting the Rethuglican line against it!

And my years in social worker (7) convinced me, beyond what I thought possible, as I attempted to find homes for neglected, abused, and abandoned children, that every child should be a wanted child.

[Liberty Belle]

39. A friend nearly died

When I was 18 and working a minimum wage job, a young woman who had escaped a battering husband came to work at our store. A week later, she found out she was pregnant. She was torn over what to do, since she didn't have a dime to her name and had borrowed money from the store's manager just to get an empty apartment with no furniture. Then things got worse. She collapsed at work and we had to call an ambulance. Turns out she had an ectopic pregnancy. That's where the fertilized egg implants itself in the Fallopian tube or somewhere else outside the womb. If you don't terminate the pregnancy right away, the tube bursts and you die.

I've done some research and was shocked to learn that 1 in every 50 pregnancies is ectopic! Also, the rate is going up, since birth control pills, IUDs, or a prior abortion all raise the risk of an ectopic pregnancy.

My friend was lucky, because she miscarried before the doctors could perform an abortion. I was on the verge of helping her pay for one, and I'd considered myself anti-abortion before then. I've since come to realize that there are many women in difficult circumstances, and it's up to God to judge them, not me, and certainly not the government! I've known women who lost a spouse, had other children and no money, or found out that the child they are carrying had severe deformities or devleopmental problems (such as no brain stem or organs outside the body. What if the mother has Ovarian cancer? Or sustains internal injuries in a car accident? I don't think it's right to deny her treatment becuase the treatment could cause her to lose the baby, or damage it. I believe that she should have the ultimate decision in these cases, or if she is not conscious to make them, her doctor,husband or parents should have the authority to do what they believe is best--not Big Brother.

[patomime]

42. I'm pro-choice because .....

I truly feel it is a civil right of every woman to have rights over her own body. I also feel that no one in government, church or other person should have the final say-so, only the woman involved. It is between her, her doctor and if she believes in God, her God.

To deny a woman freedom of choice is like telling her she is a second class citizen, unable to have the choices that her very life has given her.

I want to also say, finally, I struggled with this for many years as a person of faith, however, someone made the greatest sense to me by saying I had no right to make a choice for others because that would be judgmental and Christian teaching also tells us that he who is without sin, let him/her cast the first stone. So, on the final issue, I cannot condemn or judge a person because she might make that decision. I think pro-lifers forget sometimes they are not the only ones in the world. Sometimes, they just want to control the world. That's the irony to me, that other women would treat their own species like second class citizenry.

[Dulcinea]

43. Why I am pro-choice:

Because I don't believe in forced parenthood. Parenting is a very demanding job. I love my girls & couldn't imagine life without them, but it's not easy!

I have 2 daughters whose rights must be protected.

I feel a woman should be the boss of what goes into & comes out of her uterus, not the government.

If you want to talk morality, it's far more immoral for women & girls to die terrible, needless deaths from illegal abortions that to have safe, legal ones.

As George Carlin once said: "The people against abortion are the people you wouldn't want to f**k anyway."

[KitSileya]

45. Why I am pro-choice:

Because in some instances, abortions are a medical necessity.

Because the government has no business making medical decisions.

Because I do not believe my religion, or any religion, should limit the choices of those who do not believe the same as I.

Because I find biblical support for it - which will only help determine *my* decision should I ever decide to have an abortion, because even if the Bible openly stated "abortion is ok" it should not be used as a basis for any laws.

Because I do not believe a fetus is a human being - as long as it cannot survive outside the womb, it's part of the woman's body.

Because I believe a fully grown woman is more important than an unborn embryo/fetus/child.

Because children should not be forced to destroy their bodies to bring forth any child.

Because women who are raped should not be forced to bear their rapist's child.

But most importantly, I am pro-choice because women have the right to decide over their own bodies.

[sariku]

46. I am pro-choice because...

Might be a long story, and I think that some will not understand my reasoning.

Once, a long time ago, I was a member of the southern baptist church. I bought into everything they said about godless Americans, hateful feminists, gays & lesbians, abortion being murder, and that every godless heathen was out to turn your child into a godless heathen like themselves.

Then a funny thing happened - besides learning to think for myself, and no long repressing my natural urge to question everything. I started having "problem pregnancies". For reasons that are still unknown, my body could not only not sustain a pregnancy, but it couldn't expel it, either. It was a very, very difficult time for me, the effects of which I still feel to this day. It happened three times, and each time I had a "missed abortion", I had to have a surgical abortion. One was a D&C, the other two were what people consider to be "traditional" abortions, sorry but I can't remember the name (extraction).

This really caused a lot of soul searching for me. It gave me reason to really think about the personal, physical, and financial aspects of pregnancy. I realized that pregnancy and abortion are about so much more than the moronic sound bites that the religious right would like us to believe. Each pregnancy, and each situation surrounding a pregnancy, are different in their own ways.

Who, but me, was fit to tell me how to proceed with my pregnancy? Who but me knew enough about my situation to tell me what my choices were going to be? Who knew enough about my physical and mental health (because trust me, after three miscarriages, your mental health suffers - when I got pregnant with my youngest, I thought I would have a nervous breakdown, I did not want to go through that again).

Losing three pregnancies also taught me something about the value of a child. I knew that what I'd lost with my pregnancies was not an actual baby. It was a baby to ME, because what I'd lost was my hopes and my dreams. It's the emotion and dedication that the woman has that, for her, makes a fetus into a baby. It's part of the emotional preparation you make to bond with the child that will be, so that the minute that baby emerges, you love it and want to take care of it. And though I mourned for the babies I never got to hold, trust me, my little girl that I was eventually able to have (my youngest - this all happened between daughter 2 and daughter 3) is MUCH more important to me than the babies I lost.

After having gone through that, I saw how cold the religious right is to the plight of the women. As if they don't matter. I could no longer accept that. The people who exist should take precedence over the people who do not yet exist.

[illflem]

47. I'm pro-choice because....

It is utterly immoral to force a woman to bear an unwanted child. It is immoral not just because of the impact to women but because of the impact to the earth and future generations. Billions of people today live in poverty on the edge of starvation. We currently consume 20 percent more natural resources than the Earth can produce and that we have permanently reduced Earth's capacity to support life. The skyrocketing curve of population growth is about to meet the plunging curve of resource depletion.

If a woman does not want a child, then the Earth does not want it either. Far better to let a tiny embryo, the merest spark of life, be extinguished, than to risk the lives of so many who are already here. This is a moral choice of the highest order and it is one that all women are empowered to make.

Those who oppose abortion and reproductive choice are the ones who are anti-life.

Those who support a woman's right to choose and who want to help women all over the world gain access to reproductive health care are the ones who are morally righteous and who are on the side of life.

There is no cause more moral than this one: We shall leave a living planet to our children, not a wasteland.

[election_2004]

49. Why I'm pro-choice...

Because I don't feel it's my place to be making personal decisions for complete strangers.

[Done]

50. I don’t believe a wad of gue is a human being

George Bush is a wad of gue so it’s only natural that he thinks a wad of gue is a human being.

[SemperEadem]

52. I am pro choice

because I believe each woman is sovereign of her own body and no one has the right, or is fit, to interfere with her sovereignty.

I am pro choice because I do not believe that it is anyone's place to dictate terms to them on how they are to proceed with their own body.

I am pro choice because I think it's the height of pride to stick one's nose in business which does not concern them or directly impacts their ability to provide for their own lives.

I am pro choice because my 21 yr old daughter is adult enough to make choices for her own life and her own body.

I can remember during my catholic upbringing when, in 1972 as a 6th grader, Roe v Wade established the tone for women's reproductive rights in this country.. (first off, you have to understand the kind of "catholic school girl" I was in 1972: we're talking about one who, at the Halloween party at the school that year, came dressed as Queen Anne Boleyn---and won 2nd place in the costume contest ;) ) Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne, indeed!

I was first introduced to the brainwashing tactics of the church against choice that year--the hideous pictures they showed to us of aborted fetuses and their body parts turned me off to their coersive tactics more than it did to incense my young mind against the 'evils of choice'. To me, I didn't get why I was being exposed to something that did not concern me (and as far as I was concerned, wasn't going to be concerning me until I was, at the very least, 8-10 years older than I presently was) and I rather resented what I could clearly see they were trying to do. It compounded my contempt for them.

However, I never, ever totally bought the rhetoric they were pushing on me. I always took it as a joke; I certainly never took anything they stood for seriously, hence my religion grades throughout my 'catholic academic career'.

When faced with this new brainwashing onslaught, I took it in the same cynical stride I'd always adopted--yet one more thing they're using to force an issue with me and because it's them doing it, it's not to be taken seriously, but with the contempt it deserved. If they were against it, then it probably was a good idea to be for it.

[LWolf]

53. I'm not.

I'm pro-responsible choice.

I'm not for unrestricted choice.

Now I know I just shot the blood-pressure of many here right through the roof. I'm female. I've made my reproductive choices. My personal history, which I'm not about to share here, is a great illustration of the consequences of taking choice away.

I'm not about taking choice away. I just want to insert the word "responsible."

I don't believe that people should have unregulated reproductive freedom. There. I've said it. I don't know how to regulate reproduction with justice, so I'm not advocating any particular regulations. But here is my issue:

Where I've come from in my lifetime, and the profession that I practice, has given me way too much exposure to the other side of choice. And, frankly, having babies should not be a choice for every person.

"Reproductive choice and freedom" comes complete with the notion that people should be able to reproduce freely. Without enough guarantees that they will provide the children they produce with safe, clean, loving, nurturing environments to grow up in.

And I believe that every single child born has the right to grow up safe, well-cared for, and loved.

That's the responsibility that should be inherent in "choice."

Frankly, the systems we have in place to ensure that are fatally flawed. So, while I support the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and I support the right of people to choose not to have children at all, I don't support the right, for men or women, to produce children without the physical and emotional resources to care for them. When "choice" is hurting those born, I draw the line.

[Raiden]

54. I am pro-choice...

...because I don't think the government should exert control over a woman's uterus.

...because reproductive freedom is fundamental and necessary for women to control their own destinies.

...because by giving the government the jurisdiction to tell a woman that she cannot get an abortion, the slippery slope begins. Soon they outlaw the pill, then they outlaw OTC birth control products and so on.

...because by outlawing abortions, women are made one step closer to becoming forced breeders.

...because the more options women have, the more even the playing field between men and women becomes. It takes a woman AND a man to create a life, and yet it is all too easy for the man to opt out. Women shouldn't be forced to carry the burden alone.

...because outlawing abortions only prevents SAFE abortions.

...because women should be able to make major choices affecting their destiny on their own terms. If they choose adoption that's great, but if they choose to end their pregnancy, that's fine too.

...because I think every child should be a wanted child.




I AM by no means pro-ABORTION, I am simply pro-CHOICE. I have seen the pictures of aborted fetuses. I have read about the methods of abortion. It's disgusting quite frankly, but so are colonoscopies. Should they be outlawed as well? I am a male who supports a woman's right to choose.

[backtoblue]

200. Well said...

"...because by outlawing abortions, women are made one step closer to becoming forced breeders."

Wars and famine kill more children than abortions. Disease and bad healthcare kill more children than abortions. Neglect and abuse kill more children than abortions.

"...because I think every child should be a wanted child."

[Solly Mack]

56. Because if I don't own my body then how can I ever be free?

My body = the physical self, the spiritual self, my intellect, my emotions, my beliefs, my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations....my ability to just be and exist.

I give no consent to any governing body...be it the church or my government...to determine my choices for me.

Anyone that thinks they know what is best for me had damn well better:

Grant my wishes before I even know they are my wishes
Make all my dreams come true before I even have the dream
Pay for all my needs and wants...before they are my needs and wants
See to it that I never have to suffer fools before they ever cross my path

IOW- anyone that is arrogant enough to presume they know me better than I know myself had damn well better have the powers of a god and see to it that my life is nothing but charmed. Otherwise, they can keep their mouths shut and their hands off my womb.

[PrezLeefun87]

99. Its not your body.

Sorry but its not your body. Science tells us that is someone elses body. That person's gentic makeup is different from yours. You have different DNA. We have pictures of feutus just a few weeks old. How can you dent life right before your eyes. Your viewpoint is so selfish.

[Ms Chicklet]

104. You can also say the same things about parasites

And I don't have to live with a parasitical infection.

[xmas74]

112. But it lives

in my body for nine months.
My pregnancy was what caused my vomiting, headaches, lightheadedness, high blood pressure, the toxemia, the ecclampsia, swollen feet, spotting,varicose veins, stretch marks, weight gain (that I still haven't completely defeated), 2 1/2 months of bedrest, 49 hours of labor, a seizure, a c-section, severe anemia, and a blood transfusion. It is also the reason that I lost my job (of course, they didn't give that reason. Since I was pregnant I could no longer work in the area that I was assigned to, so they found their own way to let me go).
Don't get me wrong-I love my daughter with every breath that I have in my body. She was always wanted and I do my very best to make sure that she knows this. But if another woman is not ready to go through some of the experiences that I went through-then why make her.
BTW-my daughter was not planned for that time (I wanted a child a little bit later-maybe a few years). I got pregnant after four years on the pill. Just to prove a point-you can still get pregnant, even on birth control.

I am pro-choice because I feel, as a woman, that I have the right to make a choice. I chose to raise a child by myself. I chose not to marry a emotionally abusive man who did not care about my feelings or my thoughts (and has proved that he does not care about his child, either). I chose not to have an abortion. I chose not to give her up for adoption.
But most of all, I made a choice. And every woman should have the right to make a choice-whether family planning, abortion, adoption or rearing herself-it is her choice.

[ehrnst]

135. A fetus requires the use of another body to exist. Right?

If I require a kidney, and you are the only match, I have no rights to it - even to live.

You would give the fetus more rights than any born person.

[Novjunulo]

141. Yes, but...

if someone already has your kidney, you may not kill them to get it back out.

Abortion is not merely an "unplugging" or a "refusal" tho let them use your body; its intent is a dead fetus, not simply extraction from your body. This is evidenced by abortions after viability. Abortions burn the fetus/embryo or tear it limb from limb.

[rebecca_herman]

57. because

I believe it is the right of every woman to decide what happens to her body.

[renaissanceguy]

58. I am pro-choice

because it's none of my damn business what a woman decides to do. She knows best for herself. I sure don't want anyone else, especially the government, regulating my genitalia, sex life, and relationships.

---------------------------
Buy liberal, anti-Bush, and outspoken political merchandise at www.cafepress.com/liberalissues

[China_cat]

59. I am pro-choice because

it is nobody else's business whether I decide to breed or not.

And pro-choice encompasses more than just abortion. I also remember the days when, if you were under 30 and had less than 3 living children, you couldn't get anyone to do a tubal ligation and you practically had to find a doctor who provided abortions to get birth control.

[Darranar]

60. Several reasons...

1. I have moral reservations about abortion. However, I have no right to force my moral values on anyone else when it comes to THEIR body.

2. A fetus is a potential life, not a life itself. At some level, it is part of the mother's body, and therefore the mother has, by virtue of her right to control her body, the right to destroy it.

3. Banning abortion will only lead to dangerous procedures being done illegally in replacement of the safe medical procedures currently practiced.

4. There are far more effective ways of reducing abortions aside from banning them - reducing poverty, for instance.

[Jackie97]

61. Nice to see you again.

I want to see you more often! It's my fault. I don't hardly hang out where you're at anymore. LOL.

I agree with your observations about abortion. There are far more effective ways to reduce it. Holland has no anti-abortion laws, but yet has the lowest abortion rate in the world. That's because they're very open about sexuality when they teach sex education to kids. I don't know if that's the teachers, the parents, or the adults in general; but I've read that they're like that.

They also have a lot of access to contraception. If you want to prevent abortion, then prevent pregnacy.

I also personally think that the fact that Holland is pretty Socialist also adds to it. Many abortions performed in the US are done because the woman was too poor to raise a child.

I don't want anti-choicers to call our bluff and say that they'll pay for raising our children to outlaw choice (as iverglas suggusted could happen if we keep pushing that). However, I would like to stress to anti-choicers that a way to reduce abortion is to reduce poverty.

[Darranar]

62. It's nice to see you, too!

You are right. Sensible sex education combined with a system that maintains economic justice would reduce abortions greatly, and so if the "pro-lifers" want to actually protect fetuses, that should be the way to go.

But no, that would be communism. The lives of the poor or of women don't matter, just the potential lives of fetuses aborted legally.

[genieroze]

63. I'm pro life because I'm a Christian

but I'm pro choice because I'm a woman and the idea of anyone telling me what to do with my body would tick me off. I don't like the fact in China that they make women have abortions, not to mention most of the abortions are for females fetuses. I don't think the government in any country should tell a woman what to do with her body.

[fortyfeetunder]

64. What another woman does with her body

Is none of my blankety-blank business. A wpman's reproductive decisions are between her and her doctor. Period.

[Name removed]

146. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scout]

155. too funny!

"Your right to swing yor (sic) fist ends at the tip of his nose."

so if i'm swinging my fist at my fetus' nose, where do my rights end?

:rofl:

[MountainLaurel]

158. How do you get your fist in there?

And can you swing your fist at its nose before it's a recognizable nose?

[Kipepeo]

65. Rights

Because it clicked with me one day that to give a fetus legal rights is to take away rights from the woman. It's that simple. My moral, religious, ethical views on when life begins, etc. don't matter when it comes to legal rights. If I had to put it in one sentence it would be: I don't believe women become second class citizens when they get pregnant.

[Hello_Kitty]

66. Necessary evil

Women have done it in one form or another for thousands of years. Abortion is tragic but dead babies in trashcans or children who are abused, neglected, or living in extreme poverty is much worse.

[AmericanLiberal]

95. Question

I just have one question about this kind of reasoning: Why are dead babies in trashcans worse than abortion?

[ehrnst]

136. The infant can exist apart from the woman, The fetus can't.

The decision to kill an infant is different than making a decision to end a pregnancy previability (post-viablity abortions are very rare, anyway, as few women seek them and few physicians perform them).

The decision to kill an infant is not involved in any way with a decision a woman makes about her body.

Once it is viable outside her body, someone else can provide for it.

Death of the fetus is unavoidable when a pregnancy ends - death of a viable infant is aviodable. That is why it is more tragic.

[PrezLeefun87]

102. wake up dude!

Its murder!

[ehrnst]

133. Get your dictionary out dude!

Murder is a legal term.

Using it incorrectly always shows that you're trying to derail the discussion by pissing someone off.

[iverglas]

138. heh

"Murder is a legal term."

Quite true. It would be correct for the anti-choice to allege that abortion is "homicide". (Correct to allege, but not true, of course. And not appropriate to allege that it is "homocide", as is too often seen ...)

Of course, one might suspect that those who write "its" when they mean "it's" aren't big dictionary users.

And one might also suspect that those whose profiles exhibit tombstones were indeed "trying to derail the discussion by pissing someone off".

;)

[Iris]

192. you crack me up

you've boiled this down to a science!

:toast:

[liontamer]

67. I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

plain and simple

[IndyOp]

68. I am pro-choice because...

Even though I believe that all life is sacred, and would council anyone who is pregnant to consider options other than abortion, I cannot control what anyone else does with their body.

I believe that not only is the life of the child sacred, so is the life of the woman who is pregnant.

I did not get that the 'pro-life' position was about controlling women's bodies until I heard about the laws in ancient Rome: It was illegal for a woman to get an abortion (because the empire needed all the male children women could breed). It was perfectly legal for men for kill newborn female children (they are expensive to feed).

I resent the fact that the 'pro-life' position will always and only limit the freedoms of middle- and lower-class women. Wealthy women will always be able to pay for access to safe abortions.

[noamnety]

69. In simplest terms, I decide what sacrifices I make

No woman OR man should be forced against their will to use parts of their bodies to save someone else's life.

I don't care if it's mandatory blood donations, mandatory kidney donations, mandatory bone marrow donations, mandatory use of a uterus, or mandatory taking of body parts after death. I don't care if it's something that on the surface seems entirely justifiable for the good of another human being - like mandating that I should have to donate one of my eyes for a veteran that lost theirs in a war - even though they might "deserve" the use of that eye more than I. Even if a criminal shot a person's eye out on purpose, the government would punish them, but they would never force the criminal to undergo an operation to remove their eye to donate it to the victim, even though the situation is the direct consequence of their own actions.

I know a lot of people donated blood after 9/11, but never did we say all eligible citizens HAD to donate blood - even when we knew we had a shortage, even though we know it's a low risk procedure that takes minutes, not months, even though we know the body regenerates that blood within days, and even though we KNOW donating blood saves lives. We have always drawn the line at our government mandating that we sacrifice our body parts against our will.

[SillyGoose]

70. I am pro-choice because there are options available

and each individual must make her own choice based on what is suitable for her at that point in time. There is no black and white solution for each individual.

[grace0418]

71. I am pro-choice because

it is extremely arrogant to assume that one's beliefs about when life begins are the same as everyone else's beliefs. Even though I probably could not have an abortion myself, under no circumstances do I feel it's right to force all women to make the same choice as I make.

[eallen]

72. I'm pro-choice because I'm a civil libertarian. There must be...

There must be a damn good reason before the government steps in and tells a woman (or a man!) how to treat their own body.

[BPD2258]

73. innocent question...

Please don't flame me. I really ask this in all sincerity... if our stand is to make abortions legal, safe and rare, why are we not working on the rare part? I agree that a woman should have complete control over her own body, but I don't see many Democratic politicians working on legislation that would make abortions rare. Wouldn't that be a great way to bridge the divide between the right-wingers and us?

[iverglas]

74. but there was a question on the table

"Why are you pro-choice?"

You answer that one, and I'll be more than happy to answer yours (which is, of course, loaded).

[ohkay]

75. They become rare when

women know how to prevent them. Good education makes abortions less necessary, as women know how to PREVENT pregnancy. Some dems are working on changing sex ed, but as long as we have SCHOOLS teaching kids that you can get pregnant through masturbation, we've got a long road ahead of us.

[nightperson]

76. Barry Goldwater on abortion:

"A lot of so-called conservatives don't know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right."

If you're concerned about crime, the environment, foreign policy, poverty, etc. etc., overpopulation is the ignored monster in the corner, as Buffett, Gates and Turner understand. "Pro-choice" is just the tip of the iceberg, which may explain why even Scaife is down with the program.

The Dems continue to sleep on population issues, and continue to lose.
Get a grip! ZPG!

Like with drug criminalization, I ask people, is this you?:


Are you personally willing to kick down someone's door to enforce some policy?

On edit: oops this was a response to the original poster, not #75.

[WildClarySage]

79. And as men support women in their pregnancy prevention efforts.

[SarahB]

85. Yes

Unfortunately, the same people who are the most vehemently anti-abortion are the same people who don't want to teach practical aspects of birth control and sexuality, and are frequently not only anti-contraception, but want sex education to consist only of religious based abstinence programs. Their logic is flawed; their views narrow.

[noamnety]

77. Go back and read post 40

When we had Clinton in office, abortions went down (safe, legal, rare). Under Bush, abortions are increasing while the ability of doctors to determine the safest procedures are being limited (unsafe, illegal, widespread).

So to answer your question directly, the reason we aren't working on the rare part is because we have BushCo making policy decisions that increase ALL the reasons that women get abortions, and blocking all legislation that would remove the causes.

Nearly all of our democratic politicians support legislation that would make abortions rare - this legislation includes fact-based education, access to affordable birth control, access to affordable health care, minimum wage increases and a support system that makes it possible to AFFORD to both give birth and raise a child.

I would have thought the right wingers were smart enough to understand that if abortion was their wedge issue, they would vote for policies that resulted in less abortions. Apparently, I was wrong.

[Jackie97]

78. How we're trying to make abortions rare.

Pro-choicers promote real sex education (often with the inclusion of abstinence as an option). Most of us are in favor of working to try to make birth control as accessable as possible with as little fuss from the insurance company as possible.

The key is not to try to encourage women to have their babies. They key is to try to prevent pregnacy to begin with. Democrats and Pro-choicers promote that for the most part. Republicans and anti-abortion people seem to promote a lot of ignorance for kids about how to keep from getting pregnant (through abstinence only education), less available access to contraception, etc.

It would help if our culture itself was more open about sexuality. I heard that's one of the reasons that Holland has the lowest abortion rate in the world (that and all they do all the suggestions I make). They're not afraid to talk about sex, so people understand more about how to prevent pregnacy.

If you want to encourage women to have their babies, I would suggest more social programs and more programs to help potentially single parents financially get on their feet with a good job. Democrats encourage social programs. Anti-abortion Republicans don't. Go figure.

[REP]

92. Who Said It Was "Our" Stand?

I don't recall any "stand." Where did you come up with this? Why do "we" have to bridge the divide with the right wingers? Why don't they bridge the divide, since they're the ones who created it? I'm just curious - please don't flame me for my innocent questions.

[Ms Chicklet]

107. Legislating the rarity of abortions

With the Republican Party in the death grip of the American Taliban (aka the Religious Right), putting any kind of dent in the abortion rate just won't happen. Comprehensive sex education and easy access to contraception and voluntary sterilization make them spastic.

[ianna_kur]

116. Unfortunately...

One of the ways to make abortion rare is by making birth control options widely known, and readily available. Abstinence does not work. The rhythm method does not work. Unless teenagers and adults are taught the medical facts about birth control, abortion will continue to be the only option that many women have. Unfortunately, the pseudo-religious-right which currently controls the GOP is extremely opposed to this idea.

Of course lack of birth control education and availability is only one part of why abortions occur.
Unfortunately, without a great deal of work, there will continue to be rape in this country.
Unfortunately, without a great deal of work, there will continue to be soul breaking poverty and social conditions in this country.
Unfortunately there will also continue to be medical conditions that do not allow a pregnancy to be brought to term.

[NCN007]

81. IMHO its wrong

life begins with conception, arguing otherwise is semantics and means to an end

BUT

Birth control isnt 100% effective
Abstinance is unrealistic.
And there are a lot of people out there who are not ready to be parents (myself included)
...Its tragic, but nessesary

[BPD2258]

82. I feel the same way...

There may be legitimate reasons for an abortion, but they should be rare. Even Kerry admitted that life began at conception. It's the "rare" part of this debate that needs to be addressed better by us Democrats.

[noamnety]

83. He "admitted"?

He expressed his personal opinion, but there are different opinions on the issue.

Your phrasing is quite odd.

[iverglas]

84. "admitted"?

Even Kerry admitted that life began at conception.

What a strange word to use.

Kerry, in fact, stated that it was his belief that life begins at conception.

If I state that it is my belief that faeries dance at the bottom of my garden, will you say that I have admitted that faeries dance at the bottom of my garden?

... And will someone else then be required to agree that it is wrong to use pesticides on his/her garden, because pesticides kill dancing faeries?

This could be fun. I'll make up some meaningless thing, I'll say I believe it, you say that I've admitted it, and then you propose a law that prevents someone else from doing something because, based on what I believe, it isn't nice to do it -- and I'll have to explain why I don't think the law is a good thing.

Years of entertainment stretch ahead of us ...


It's the "rare" part of this debate that needs to be addressed better by us Democrats.

There is no "rare" part of this "debate".

The question being debated is whether women may/should be prevented from exercising their fundamental rights.

The rights in question are individual rights. How many people choose to exercise them has nothing to do with whether any individual may be prevented from exercising them.

Abortion must be legal.

If it is legal, we can expect that it will be safe. Redundancy.

If women don't choose to exercise their right to an abortion in large numbers, then it will be rare. Anybody who wants it to be rare is quite free to engage in persuasive activities to deter women from having abortions, or to attempt to create conditions in which women do not need abortions or do not want abortions.

But anybody who does those things and does not make the unconditional statement that abortion must be legal is not pro-choice.

An individual woman's RIGHT to choose abortion is not conditional on how many women exercise that right, on the reasons why she wants or needs an abortion, or on anything else.

[Jackie97]

88. Why?

Why should the rare part be addressed more? So we can sound preachy and judgmental sexists like the Republican Party? I don't think so. Abortion is not immoral, period.

We already take actions that have the effect of reducing unwanted pregnacy and therefore, abortion. We help people get better access to birth control and we educate them on how to better to protect themselves.

If you care so much about making abortion rare, then you need to take your gripe to the people trying to get in the way of those who want to prevent unwanted pregnacy. Don't preach at us.

[Iris]

203. I like your style Jackie97!

[zcbta]

91. Kerry?

Exactly how is Kerry an authority on when life begins? It isn't a decided issue, still a matter of opinion. It all depends on what you consider human life to actually be.

[Iris]

206. exactly what I was thinking.

He ran for president so we democrats are supposed to just take his word on all matters that seem ambiguous?

[AmericanLiberal]

94. Because having a child is one of the most important things in a person's l

Because having a child is one of the most important things in a person's life. Because having sex is a natural thing and right and shouldn't be denied to anyone. Because contraceptives don't work 100%. Add those 3 things up...

[Iris]

204. add up to forced childbirth?

How do you know what's the most important thing in my life?

[kestrel91316]

224. Does this mean my life is empty because I never had children??

:rofl:

Speak for yourself. Having children was never a priority for me.

[Undercover Owl]

97. pregnancy sucks unless you REALLY want a baby.

Pregnancy has very unpleasant physical symptoms. Do men realize that being pregnant is a drag, physically and mentally? Pregnancy and childbirth is demanding on the body, and is associated with several health risks. Apparently, the anti-choice males either don't know this, or just don't care. They would care if they were impregnable.

Any woman who carries out a pregnancy until the end deserves a reward, and fortunately, the baby is usually sufficient reward.
In any case, asking someone to stay pregnant is asking a lot, and it should be expected that sometimes the answer will be no.

[PrezLeefun87]

100. That does not mean you kill the baby.

Yes pregnacy is hard but we live in a day and age where we can prevent pregancy without killing someone.

I think abortion should be limited. Its not right. It is for the most part sick, selfish, and the product of irresponsibilty.

[Jackie97]

103. Pragmatism.

If you think that the fetus is a human being, then why do you want abortion "limited". Why don't you want it completely illegal without making exceptions for the mother?

Answer: You don't really think it's a person, do you?

Some people think that cows are people. That doesn't make it so.

[iverglas]

108. you're absolutely right!

Abortion does NOT "mean you kill the baby". Congratulations. Keep saying it, and you might acquire adult thinking skills.

And write "pregnancy" 100 times on the blackboard, and you might learn how to spell it. Pregnacy ... pregancy ...

Yes pregnacy is hard but we live in a day and age where we can prevent pregancy without killing someone.

Damn. If I wanted to prevent pregnancy, I can't imagine how killing someone would do it. I can't even imagine how killing someone would work if I were pregnant and didn't want to be.

That aside, I don't know what day and age you might live in, but it doesn't appear to be the same day and age as the rest of us.

Maybe you live in a day and age where there is a 100% effective method of pregnancy prevention available to all women, and all women are provided with access to it. This method of pregnancy prevention is suitable and works for for all women (regardless of age, medical conditions, etc.), never fails (and is something that all women, regardless of their physical and intellectual abilities, always use correctly), and cannot be overcome by third parties (like coercive partners, abusive family members, criminal strangers ...).

We all know that not even "abstinence" works, since not all women are able to exercise full control over their own bodies. Nuns get pregnant, and not by choice.

Anyhow, who's this "we"? "We" can prevent pregnancy? You have some method by which you can prevent someone else's pregnancy? I don't think I want to know.

I think abortion should be limited. Its not right. It is for the most part sick, selfish, and the product of irresponsibilty.

Yeah, well, it's been said: it's "murder", and you just want to "limit" it? Yeah. Just like we "limit" other murders ... like how it's illegal to kill, oh, fathers-in-law, but not mothers-in-law. Some pigs is just more equal than others. Some folks get their right to life protected, and some don't. Right?

Now, if abortion is sick etc. "for the most part", what is it for the other part?!

And you're sounding like you need the lecture so often handed out in the gun dungeon (to the invisible people who say things that only rkba-heads can hear ...): Guns don't kill people! People kill people! An inanimate object is not evil!

You say that abortion is "sick and selfish". Don't you mean that the WOMEN who have abortions -- WOMEN whose abortions are "the product of" WOMEN'S "irresponsibility" -- are sick and selfish?

I think you must.

[Undercover Owl]

109. refusing to carry a fetus is not "selfish"

Carrying a baby to term is such a huge sacrifice in a woman's life, and such a toll on a woman's body, it is really not unreasonable or "selfish", as you say, to decide early on in the pregnancy that she won't carry the pregnancy to term.

[Iris]

205. and doesn't end with the birth.

no matter if the woman raises the child herself or gives it up for adoption.

[xmas74]

113. But we should allow

the baby to possibly kill the mother? Explain this.

[ehrnst]

131. Why don't you become a surrogate mom? It won't kill you.

Or if you are infertile or a man, why don't you donate a kidney? It won't kill you.

Or are you so sick, selfish and irresponsible to let someone die when you could give them life?

[ehrnst]

137. Are you saying that fetuses can exist apart from the woman?

Do you know somenthing the rest of us don't????

[kestrel91316]

225. Oh, fuck you. I practiced responsible sex by being on the pill

(which was truly 100% effective for me) for over 30 years. If I had gotten pregnant while ON THE PILL TO AVOID PREGNANCY, there would have been nothing whatsoever irresponsible about that pregnancy OR an abortion.

[Crunchy Frog]

326. My pregnancy sucked even though it was really, really wanted.

A friend of mine recently had twins and her pregnancy sucked even worse; as in could have killed her worse. Oh, and she got pregnant on the pill too.

It just is not something that ANYONE should ever be forced to go through against her will.

[PrezLeefun87]

101. Thats just not good enough to take away human life

Thats just not good enough to take away human life. Think of the wonderful opportunities you are supporting to be killed.

[WildClarySage]

106. No, that's not good enough to take away my right to control my own

body. Is the crux of your argument there that abortion stops wonderful people from happening? I could just as easily argue that abortion stops terrible evil horrible people from happening too.

Try again to convince me that my body should be used to play host to an unwanted potentiality.

[HockeyMom]

119. Not meant to be born

Did anyone ever consider that all these aborted "babies" were never MEANT to be born at that particular time? Same is true for miscarriages, stillbirths, etc. When I got married, my husband and I decided on two kids ONLY. I had an ectopic 2 years after my first daughter was born. If I did not have that ectopic pregancy, my younger daughter WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BORN. I feel SHE was meant to be born and not that other one. No, we would not have had a third child since we agreed before marriage my husband would have a vasectomy after our second child was born and he did.
People really need to recognize that there are many, many spiritual views in this world, NOT just the CHRISTIAN one.

[ehrnst]

132. No reason is good enough to force childbirth on someone.

One of the requirements of life is a woman *willing* to gestate.

[ehrnst]

134. Life requires that a woman consent to carry and give birth.

Not consenting to create life does not = taking away life.

[Ms Chicklet]

105. Why I'm pro-choice

Because I'm in charge here. Just because I have a uterus doesn't mean I have to use it.

If you want to believe the Pro-LIE, anti-choice crap and want to live according to such twaddle, go ahead. It's your life. But I don't have to live by what some pinched-up misogynist preacher men or a senile, drooling old man in a dress say.

And as far as the "selfish" line goes for women choosing abortion or being pro-choice, every reason I've ever heard for someone choosing to have a baby is selfish. Whether they want "a living symbol of twoo wuv" or someone to love them unconditionally or to experience pregnancy/childbirth or to shore up a flagging relationship, the reasons generally start with the sentiment of "I want." That doesn't mean the reasons are bad. It just means that throwing out the "selfish" line is hypocritical.

By the way, I consider myself "pro-abortion" as well as "pro-choice." If a woman wants an abortion for any reason, I'm for her getting it on demand, without apology.

[TruthNik]

161. Personal Question

Ms. Chicklet,

You seem really bitter and angry. I have a suspicion you've participated in an abortion yourself.

Christ is waiting for you. I pray you find him soon.

A friend.

[uppityperson]

166. "Christ is waiting for you. I pray you find him soon." WTF?

"a friend"? as if. I have a suspicion your time on DU is limited.

[MountainLaurel]

170. I'm wondering

If the increased interest in forced birth here isn't due to some organizational effort surrounding the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Kind of a "do your duty and proselytize" promotion. Either that, or the Catholic schools are giving extra credit again for harassing pro-choicers.

[uppityperson]

171. Those are interesting thoughts.

More than just random people wandering in, more of a group, coordinated effort? Could be. More from that poster above also. Sigh.

[uppityperson]

178. It got TS'd. Good.

[kalibex]

114. For the reasons listed in the following article:

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/reprod/littmanabortion?nopag=1

-B

[ianna_kur]

115. I am female

I have a sister, a mother, two nieces, and many female friends.
I believe in Locke's assertion that personal property begins with your own body.
I know well the costs that many women paid before abortion became legal and safe in this country.
I understand that without absolute control over my own body and choices I am reduced to the status of chattel.
I refuse to be treated as an unthinking brood mare.
I refuse to be owned.

[BioDorkBeth]

118. B/c religion has no place in governmental law

As a member of the science community, I hate when Bush and his buddies make law based on what a particular religious BELIEF dictates. The actuality is that if abortion is outlawed, any woman who's life depended on aborting the pregnancy, would be screwed. Take an ectopic pregnancy. This is when the fertilized egg implants into the Fallopian tube rather than the uterus. Now nature will take it's course and the fetus will never be viable. However, in the process, it will KILL the mother! The only way to save the mother is to abort the fetus. Simple. Pro-choice. Not every abortion is used as a first line of defense against pregnancy. Women will abort the fetus whether it is legal or not. Face it...at least with it legal, more women won't die.

If you would, could you sign my petition? It's in the hopes that Bush won't get his way with the judges and try to reverse Roe v. Wade!
http://www.petitiononline.com/RVW2005/petition.html

Thanks!!

[NashVegas]

120. Because I'm a Realist

1. The back-alley procedures you refer to. Abortions are going to happen regardless of what legislation gets passed. Women with economic / social connections will have access to medically sound procedures; women without, won't.

2. Economic reality: women who have no control over their reproductive process are pushed even further down the socio-economic ladder than they already are.

[misconstrusion]

121. Not Pro Choice

Because even though I vehemently disagree with abortions, I feel that the government needs to stay out of our lives. I couldn't say that I am pro-choice, because I'm not. If some one wants to abort, so be it. The best that we can do is vote to eliminate federal programs that provide free (to the pregnant women) abortions; abortions that I fund each year on April 20th. Do it if you must, just not on my dime.

[SlackJawedYokel]

123. Words, phrases and positions.

Because even though I vehemently disagree with abortions, I feel that the government needs to stay out of our lives.
Thanks.
Because from where I stand that makes you Pro-Choice.
:)

In the end, the only really meaningful positions are keeping it legal, and therefore safe, and making it illegal.
IMO, personal philosophies concerning abortion itself play a secondary role.

I couldn't say that I am pro-choice, because I'm not.
What about being Pro-Choice makes you not consider yourself Pro-Choice?
I know that some people get freaked out when I tell them that I support a woman's right to choose throughout her entire pregnancy, but this is because for *me* the issue is one of individual rights.
And such rights aren't infringed except under very specific circumstances... like a trial by jury.

From one perspective I can see where people would be put off by the concept of aborting an 8th or 9th month pregnancy, but realistically speaking, how many *unwanted* pregnancies are carried that long?
I'm confident in saying next to none(not none given the vagaries of the human condition, mind you).
And a medical abortion at 8 or 9 months is a personal tagedy, not just a "choice", since it is occuring on an obviously wanted pregnancy.

If some one wants to abort, so be it.
From personal experience, most on the Pro-Life side would consider you Pro-Choice simply for making this statement.
Kinda like how Senator McCain got shit from the PL side when during the 2000 Thug race he was asked what he'd do if his daughter got pregnant... instead of saying immediately that she'd have the baby, he spoke his mind about doing what was right for *her*.
His handlers "clarified" what he "meant" to say later.
Oops.
:D

The best that we can do is vote to eliminate federal programs that provide free (to the pregnant women) abortions; abortions that I fund each year on April 20th.
I'm going to disagree with you here.
The *best* we can do is educate our children using effective, age appropriate sex ed classes, provide free birth control of any sort from 13 to 21 and make being a single mother a viable economic option.
That would effectively reduce the number of abortions *dramatically*, don't you think?
And no taxpayer dollars would have to be spent on abortions at all.

And I'm curious, since I've not researched, just which Federally funded programs help provide free elective abortions?

Do it if you must, just not on my dime.
I've often felt this way about our military spending.

Did you know that the US spends as much money on its military as the next 20-ish countries *combined*?
While I disagreed with the Cold War posturing, at least there was *some* justification for all of that money being wasted on equipment that never saw one day of combat... but *now*?
Aside from forcing the issue by invading other countries who the hell are we going to USE that stuff against?
Why must we keep a standing army of that size during times of *peace*?
(because come on, the "war on terror" is just as bogus as the "war on drugs").

Cletus

[Jackie97]

125. Are pro-choice.

I strongly disagree with the idea of not funding abortions for the poor. I believe those abortions need to be funded to make sure that all women have a choice. That's *my* idea of pro-choice, but I realize that it doesn't represent everybody. Being pro-choice is about not wanting the government in a woman's uterus. If you agree with that, then you're technically pro-choice.

[oddmanout]

122. Because I am human!

Because I believe in every persons fundamental right to make their own decisions and live with them. Choices are what make us free irregardless of that choices nature or consequence.
If we reduce one section of humanity to second class status it reduces us all in equal measure.


:dem:

[born2reason]

124. Choice is a Conservative American value...

Hi, I'm new here and this thread caught my attention because it is one of my soap-boxes. This is an issue that I am big on re-framing to put Republicans as well as the (anti-Christian) Religious Right in their places. It worked well in some debates I participated in before the election. I'd like to share my angle in hopes that others may pick it up and use it to help us regain footing on this issue....

First of all, abortion is not the issue at all. The only political issue is the question of whether you or the government makes your moral choices - whether or not the government legislates and article of faith. Abortion was chosen as the most emotion-laden example of this battle and used by Republicans to exploit the Christian vote (which I'm sure is blatant to anyone in this forum). By standing for choice, we are not condoning abortion, but rather condoning the constitutions promise of liberty of every American to make their own choices of faith.

Second of all, Choice is actually a conservative value. Conservatives are interested in negative rights, which tell the government what it can't do to us. Telling the gov't that it can't tell us what articles of what faith to base our laws on is a fundamental conservative belief. Thus, conservatives are obviously no longer on teh side of the people, but rather on the side of expanded government jurisdiction.

Thirdly, as for the (anti-)Christian Right, all I do is ask them how person X's abortion makes person Y any less of a Christian. For one thing, it doesn't. The action of others in no way affects any Christian's Christianity. Salvation is between one person and God. Second of all, to be true Christians, one must devote themselves to being Christ like. Christ never claims to judge others, except by the law of the land. It is God's job alone to judge the private moral actions of Christians, and any Christian who thinks its his/her job to judge the actions of others, or legislate faith to stop abortions, is in fact not being Christ-like - but attempting to be God-like which the Bible claims will earn them a fast-track one-way ticket to hell.

It is imperitive that we as Democrats, as liberals, unite in calling things as they are rhetorically. We have to stick to Choice and Anti-Choice, and any time we refer to the Christian Right, it has to be as the Anti-Christian Right, for the obvious reasons stated above. This provokes questions that allow us to prove ourselves while disproving conservative propoganda. Democrats better reflect Christian values through our policies (by using policy, it eliminates chances for them to bring up the tired "What about Clinton" crap) than do Republicans.

Also, Conservatives have had control of all 3 branches of gov't for 4 years. They havne't even talked about overturning Roe v Wade. This should be a wake up call to the Religous right that they have been exploited.

[Jackie97]

126. Conservatives don't directly talk about overturning R v W.

For the most part, you're right about that one. What they do is create laws that poke holes in the right to choose such as twenty-four hour waiting periods, the so called Partial Birth Abortion Act, the so called Unborn Victims of Violence Act, parental consent laws, laws which make it a crime of kidnapping to take a minor over the state line for an abortion, etc. Plus, check out your own individual state laws. You'd be surprised to see what other law (besides some of the ones already mentioned) have been used to restrict choice.

I don't agree that choice is a conservative value because they historically try to make people choose their choice in things. They want limited government unless it means that they're not on the top with superior rights. The Christian Right is the perfect example of that.

[DuaneBidoux]

128. My take is exactly your take...

as you can see by my poster below. Abortion always happens--women will take control of their own bodies period. There is archaeological evidence of abortions going back thousands of years. The only thing you do by making it illegal it is assure that both mother and fetus die.

[bettyellen]

129. i'm against forced reproduction.

[Name removed]

147. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scout]

156. run along to some forced birther forum, would you?

your shit is stinking up this place.

[ehrnst]

130. Pro-choice because childbirth is a sacred responsibility

Like parenthood.

Forcing it on anyone perverts what should be - a willing, loving gift.

[Spinoza]

139. I am not sure if you would consider me pro-choice.

I am pro-choice in the first trimester, somewhere in the middle in the second trimester, and pro-life (or anti-choice if you wish) in the last trimester.

I used to be 100% pro-choice. Any woman had the absolute right to abort, up until 1 minute before birth, for any reason or no reason. (I was hard core.)

Then I had 2 children. More to the point, I went thru my wifes pregnancies with her on a day to day basis. I now believe that a (for example) 8-month fetus is a human being in every sense of the word and that abortion of such a fetus is equivalent to murder. I also believe that a (for example) 1 month fetus is NOT a human being (it is only a human potential) and that a woman has the right to abort at that stage of her pregnancy. I don't know what the exact cut-off should be, (perhaps first trimester or 4 months) but I (and my wife who also used to be 100% pro-choice) do believe that some cut-off, during pregnancy, is the only moral solution.

So am I pro-choice or am I pro-life? I'm not sure.
(This was a repeat of a post on a different board.)

[ehrnst]

140. Actually, you could have written Roe v Wade

It basically states that until viability, it is the woman's decision, and after that, the state has an interest in fetal life, and can restrict it - so long as there are exceptions for the woman's health.

The thing is, healthy women with healthy, viable late-term pregnancies are not seeking abortions - even if medical ethics allowed physicians to perform them.

It's a PL myth that the only thing keeping hordes of healthy women in their 8th month of pregnancy from driving by a clinic and deciding to have an abortion is legislation...Late term abortions account for less than 1% of all abortions - even in states with no late term restrictions, so the numbers just don't support this fantasy.

So total bans like the so-called "Partial Birth Abortion Act" are only really affecting women with wanted pregnancies that have gone horribly wrong.

[zorahopkins]

160. Murder?

If the woman's health or life is in danger in the 8th or 9th month of pregnancy, then would you still think it was murder if she chose her own life or health over that of the fetus?

[Name removed]

145. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scout]

157. "you cannot choose to kill your child"

but i can choose to abort my fetus.

and you have abso-fucking-lutely no say so in it whatsoever ... even if it was your sperm, you left it in my body.

[Book Lover]

159. Just fyi, cupcake has the building

thankfully.

[rd_kent]

181. So if I have no say-so

does that mean if I dont want a child and you do, I dont have to pay child support?

Now, let me tell you where I stand before you blast me. I am 100% pro-choice, and I feel that the FINAL decision is up to the woman, but to say the man has "abso-fucking-lutely no say in it whatsoever" would mean that the man would also have "abso-fucking-lutely" no responsibility for support. If the woman does not want the man to have any part of that decision, then the decision she makes alone should include how she is going to raise the child without his support and not expect any later on.

"even if it was your sperm, you left it in my body." That statement alone removes responsibility from the man.

[Scout]

182. take it up with the courts then and eliminate the child support laws

if you don't want a child, you should get a vasectomy.

once the woman is pregnant, you have no say in it. just man up and face it. by threatening to not pay child support, you are simply trying to enforce your will on the woman ... so it is not her decision made freely in that case.

that's why i don't think the woman should tell the man ... it serves no point, and just pisses him off if his decision would be other than hers. if she WANTS to tell him she's pregnant, that is up to her. personally i would not tell him.

[rd_kent]

184. I dont even know how to respond to that

Every part of your post is repugnant to me. Is this really how you feel or are you just trying to spark an argument?

"if you don't want a child, you should get a vasectomy." What if I use a condom or the woman tells me she is using birth control, or we use both, and still get pregnant?

Just man up and face it? Really? a decision that affects the REST OF MY LIFE and Im to have no say in the matter?

"that's why i don't think the woman should tell the man" Wow. I dont even know what to say to that.

I think our views on the matter are so different, further effort is futile. Good luck with that point of view, not sure if your a man or woman, but if your a woman, I'm really glad you didnt turn out to be someone I was ever involved with. Yours seems to be the making of the stories where a guy gets a phone call from a lawyer looking for 10 years of back child support for a child he didnt even know he had becuase the woman chose not to tell him.

[uppityperson]

183. "That statement alone removes responsibility from the man." wtf?

He wasn't responsible for leaving sperm in her? What. The. Hell?

Um, no. Leaving sperm in her IS his responsibility.

[rd_kent]

185. You missed my point

I was responding to that comment. read the OP regarding that comment

[uppityperson]

186. I back tracked to Scout's post that you replied to and see what you meant.

Thanks for clarifying.

[Jkid]

179. I'm pro-choice for the following reasons.

The government has no business interfering with female body.

While the government can give the tools to allow females control of their own body, such as providing abortion-on-demand, family planning, and sex education, the ultimate responsibly is the end user. I rather have the people choose to have an abortion and for the government provide tools to prevent unwanted pregnancies before it happen and allow abortion rather than government restricting choice.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

180. Because there is no good reason not to be.

Abortion, like everything else, should be legal unless there is a good reason for it not to be.

There is no good reason for abortion not to be legal.

[Jiradog]

187. How about because it kills another human being?

I think the issue should be decided on the state level not the federal level.

[Scout]

188. right wing bullshit

are you saying women who have abortions are murderers?

if abortion kills a human being, what should be the punishment for having one? for performing one?

and BTW, the thread is "Why are you pro-choice?" not "what are your favorite right wing talking points."

[Jiradog]

189. So you are saying that abortion does not kill a human being

Could you please explain that? I did not call women who get abortions murderers. Many do not understand what they are doing.

[Scout]

190. if, as you say, abortion kills a human being....

then that must be murder, no? what crime would it be?

"Many do not understand what they are doing."
what do YOU think that they think they are doing?

[Iris]

194. damn. Why did someone have to call for pizza. I would really like to hear the answer to this.

"what do YOU think that they think they are doing?"

[uppityperson]

195. Many women who get an abortion do not understand they are getting one?

They mistake getting an abortion for going to the library? "Oh dang, that was an abortion? I thought I was roller skating!"

What? Too bad you got ts'd so soon.

"Really, I thought I was going to just get a check up and it turned out, sniff, I got an abortion!"

bwahahahahahahaha

[Iris]

196. He probably was trying not to "demonize the enemy"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=217x6698

[krazykikikat]

316. I think he probably meant that they don't understand the moral implications

But it did sound funny.
Incidentally, wth is TS? I understand from the context that they got kicked or something? But what does it stand for? "Thread starter" doesn't seem to fit in this instance...

[uppityperson]

321. Women getting abortions "don't understand the moral implications"?

whose morals? Yours? You who say "In a perfect world, I would have there be a system where only women who proved themselves worthy of the right to abort would be allowed to -- say, if she was raped, it was an accident, the baby would be defected, or she might die if she was to go full term."

I guess you do mean they don't understand YOUR morals regarding abortions.

Keep posting and you will find out what TS means.

[iverglas]

201. and I didn't get a chance to ask my question

How about because it kills another human being?
I think the issue should be decided on the state level not the federal level.

So ............... it's okay if one state decides to allow the killing of human beings, while another state prohibits it.

Is there a word coming to mind here?

Anybody?

Yes, yes, "state's rights", the perennial mating call of the right-wing loon.

But what those states' rights were really all about ............ why, yes -- slavery!

Yes, it was okay for human beings to be enslaved in some states, while other states prohibited it!

One just keeps waiting for one of them to make sense, doesn't one?

[Iris]

191. Economic equality

When you start making fetuses more important than women, you can restrict women in all sorts of way, including restricting them from certain types (or even all types) of work.

[caseymoz]

198. Many reasons (long-- but I hope informative.)

I was raised in a very anti-abortion Catholic family, and for a while I agreed, but I really felt sympathy for women who had to make what I knew was a hard choice, but . . . for a long while I didn't have a way to justify it in moral terms. What if it is a person or human being at conception?

Then, I looked further into the dogma of the Catholic Church, and read its encyclical about abortion, Humanae Vitae and I couldn't believe for a moment its reasoning. Then, I had a falling out with the Catholic Church, and Christianity in general, over the concept of sin and particularly original sin, and then I began to read and consider closely the very concept of a monotheistic God. So, I became an atheist.

Now, that didn't immediately change my question of whether there was some kind of human life that was sacred with the fetus, and if I was an atheist, I still considered a human being as something sacred. So, I also studied biology. What I concluded from that is: at conception, the zygote is just a single cell. It has no consciousness, and there's no rational reason to call it a person or a human being. So, I considered the absurdities that trying to give it rights would bring. It would become a person later. Declaring that it must be a person is like calling a wood-plank a house. To somehow award it over rights when it wasn't a real person, while you trample the rights of a real person, a woman, is an cruel injustice based on a blatant absurdity. Only irrational ideology and misguided religious dogma plagued by ignorance could possibly do it.

So, when does it become a human being from my reasoning? When it either becomes conscious, as in birth, or in the late term when it has the potential for consciousness. I mean if you give birth and the baby never wakes up, never becomes conscious, it's dead. If it becomes conscious, then it's a person. There's a side issue to be mentioned: it can only be a matter of public concern if it becomes conscious or shows that it can. Only then is there a reason for the public itself to have an interest in its maturing.

Films of it doing stuff in the womb are bullshit. It doesn't learn anything. It can't see anything, can't visualize anything. If it's taken out of the womb then, it will not act like it's conscious, no matter how much life support you give it. Everything it's doing is autonomic, and it's doing it because it's been programmed with those behaviors at that stage.

As for it being a creation by God who awards it a soul, no, we can see its development at every stage. As remarkable as it is, the hand of God has never been detected in any part of it. It seems to be building and developing itself, with an extreme amount of help from the body it's in (another reason defer to the choice of women). No God seen or detected, it's a non-issue.

[iverglas]

202. a question

So, when does it become a human being from my reasoning? When it either becomes conscious, as in birth, or in the late term when it has the potential for consciousness. I mean if you give birth and the baby never wakes up, never becomes conscious, it's dead. If it becomes conscious, then it's a person. There's a side issue to be mentioned: it can only be a matter of public concern if it becomes conscious or shows that it can. Only then is there a reason for the public itself to have an interest in its maturing.

The only way that an organism can "show that it can" become conscious is if it does it.

If the fetus is delivered and fails to breathe, would you say that at some point prior to delivery it had met the "shows that it can" test? It showed that it could "become conscious", and yet it failed to live after being delivered?

It is in fact completely impossible to tell whether any particular fetus will survive birth, no matter how many brainwaves might be detected from it prior to delivery.

This is why we have the term "stillbirth" -- for a fetus that does not live after delivery, despite the fact that it had reached the stage of hypothetical viability (and thus the delivery is not a miscarriage).

A fetus that has reached the stage of hypothetical viability and exhibits no defects that are incompatible with life will probably survive delivery. But no one, absolutely no one, can be sure, ever, that any particular fetus will do that.

Failing to survive delivery obviously can't negate the pre-delivery signs of "consciousness" that you are relying on as your criterion for becoming a human being. So the upshot would be that a fetus that you characterized as a human being pre-delivery failed to meet your criterion for being a person post-delivery.

And I'm afraid that just does not make sense to me.

[beach_house]

212. was before, not now

Hi all. I once drove someone to an abortion when I was a teenager (baby was not mine). Back then, I saw a protester outside the clinic and thought, "What a weirdo - what's the big deal, it's just an unborn baby. She can't take care of it anyway". The reasons she had it were "too young, can't afford it", and so on. Looking back, I regret it.

It seems to me that the main crux of the pro/anti argument is how you define the fetus:

Pro-choice: It's a blob of cells. No rights, not human. A parasite, a tumor wholly owned by the mother.


"Anti" choice: It's a baby, a human baby.


I have a son and a daughter. Regardless of political or religious affiliation, I went through this short mental exercise (you can too), to determine what a fetus is:

10 seconds before my son was born, was he my son?

14 days before my son was born, was he my son?

30 days...

120 days .....

and so on. Empirically, my son became my son at conception. Before that, he was not my son. Therefore, anything you want to do with the sperm or egg before conception comes under the "it's a blob" theory. Note that I've gone with option #2 - it's a baby.

What if the baby is not wanted, and has a "hard life" because of it? The argument that the baby would be "better off dead" is a bit too much. Hard life for who - the mother or the child? That reasoning is beyond selfish. There are alternatives. Rape? That is a tough one. Health of the mother? Maybe, but the situation would have to be akin to "2 people are drowning, you only have time to save one". Profound defects? Probably yes - but it depends on your defintion of 'profound'. With my second child, we were offered a Down's Syndrome test. Why? What were we going to do if it were positive, kill the baby?


However, for the vast majority of abortions (which are for convenience), the concept that abortion is a "heart wrenching" decision for those that "can't afford" to have a baby or "it's not the right time" doesn't hold much water for me. Your baby dies by your hand, and it's "poor you"? Absolutely thoughtless, and empirically wrong.

[Iris]

213. you regret driving somone to an abortion clinic but you fail to inform us

of how she feels about the decision now. Which, whether she regrets it or not, are really the only feelings that matter.

[Scout]

214. blah, blah, blah .... same old spew from the mouth of someone who will never

have to make the decision....


"but it's a baaaaaaabeeeeeeeee! what if the father wants it?"

:puke:

bring something new or stay home

[caseymoz]

218. Hard thing to answer.

I didn't become pro-choice all at once. I was raised Catholic.

First I had to understand the basis for believing an abortion, at least in the early- to mid-term, was a sin or murder. The moral arguments are based on:

1) the fetus has a soul. Variant: the fetus is a child and a person;

2) never mind one, god counts it as murder to refuse his most wonderful gift of a new life;

3) creating new life is god's sacred choice, not ours;

4) since every sperm is sacred, a whole fetus is like killing Christ himself;

5) abortions look like really bad sin (just look those pictures!);

6) the women who have them are whores, and maybe even the Whore(s) of Babylon;

7) don't make God angry, be prudent and err on the side of caution;

8) life begins at conception;

9) we know the Bible doesn't say anything about abortion, but we know it's a sin anyway;

10) sex is a bad sin to begin with, so getting away with it scot-free is even worse;

11) because the threat of pregnancy (and disease) is the best way to keep women from bringing sin on mankind (. . . again) and keep men from being tempted to sin (as always).

I'm hoping I didn't forget any. I couldn't help getting comical about some of them, but I'm not trying to set up a straw man, honest, that's what their arguments are. I also tried to keep out inferred motivations, but go on the arguments anti-choicers have made. Most of them express several of these beliefs, and shift conversations or writings from one to another.

I only give merit to the first. Of the rest: two, three and four depend on very specific religious dogma, an argument from authority. Five is witless, actually just a propaganda tool. Six and eleven require a mean judgment of women based purely in sexism, and nine and ten are non sequiturs, with nine being authoritarian.

It's possible to believe the 7th with some merit, because the Christian God (and in fact the Muslim and Jewish God) punishes nations for sins along with individuals. That happens in the Old Testament, and it's warned about in the New Testament, and it makes sin a matter of national concern, not individual choice. It is prudent, but it only has merit if one of the other arguments does. It's also questionable whether so much prudence is needed concerning an act that isn't mentioned in the Bible.

So, I'm left with argument one. Unfortunately, we cannot detect or observe a soul. Also, the "hand of god" is apparently, completely missing from the process, which has been examined thoroughly. Then we have to rely on purely on observation, and apply reasonable morality.

Even when we see a human form, we see it as a person due to its consciousness, it's mind. So, that is the basis. If it's immediately capable of gaining consciousness, or has ever been conscious, then it's a person. I would ask: when does it dream?

I would say, then, that it's probably in the fifth month that concerns about murder be raised.

And because of that, I'm pro-choice.

[cap]

219. because it is one of the fundamental legal basis to women's equality in other areas.

that's why.

[slackmaster]

220. Several reasons - First, I am generally pro-choice about everything

Second, I don't believe that terminating an early-stage pregnancy causes any suffering whatsoever. I don't believe that presence of a heartbeat or rudimentary nerve signals in any way establishes the existence of a conscious mind. I'm agnostic and am not convinced that such a thing as a soul exists. I suspect the concept is based on the way we have attempted to understand our own consiousness. No consciousness = no soul. (I can't prove that but nobody can disprove it.)

Third, a large majority of ELECTIVE abortions are performed in those early stages, so they are really no more of an issue to me than mole removal. Sounds kind of callous, but that's how I am sometimes.

Fourth, nearly all second trimester and late abortions are done for purely medical reasons, not selfish choices or capricious changes of mind. (And even if they are, that is really none of my business.)

Fifth, my mom and many other women have told me how things were in the pre-Roe days. My father and his brother were medical doctors. I have a first cousin who is a doctor now, another in medical school, and several other relatives involved in medicine. We have an extensive family memory of how things were handled, in particular in Kansas and California where elective abortions were illegal.

Finally, I believe that even if my religious beliefs are flat out wrong and that a hairy thunderer god will punish you for having an abortion, that's between you and the hairy thunderer god. It's not my job to try to enforce the will of an invisible being who is not very communicative.

[kestrel91316]

221. Because to be ANTI-choice is to favor the reproductive enslavement of women.

It is to say that women do not own their own bodies, and that they have no independent right of self-determination. It is to say that a zygote has MORE rights than a fully-developed person.

The pro-choice stand is the only rational stand.

[waiting for hope]

222. Because it's MY BODY and MY CHOICE.

I have had one, and it was the right decision for me at the time. Financially, emotionally, and the fact that I did not care to be a single mother. I have two beautiful children now, in a committed, loving marriage and I honestly believe that had I not done what I did, I would not be in the place I am in now. MY CHOICE for my future.

[Hepburn]

223. When I was in college, I found someone who had died of a botched, illegal abortion.

This was back in the 60s. There is NO way I ever wish that to happen to another women. If this girl was alive today, she would be in her 60s as I am. Instead, she died in her teens.

No way should abortion be restricted ~~ it is SOLELY a medical decision between a woman and her doctor. To make it anything else would cause the needless deaths of other women.

JMHO

[Azalea]

226. I am pro-choice for women AND men

Nobody should ever be forced int parenthood. Women shoud decide wheher or not they will remain pregnant or raise children and en should decide whether or not they will be a father to any fetus/child the woman they impregnanted decides to keep. No woman should be able to make a man a father against his will anymore than no man should be able to force through limitng access to abortion, a woman t carry his child to term. Both are equally deplorable in my opinion. No one rights outweigh your own in deciding whether or not you will be a parent. Whether deciding not t be one, results in an abortion anywhere between 0-9 months gestation or a fatherless former fetus.

[Iris]

227. so a man should be able to force a woman to have an abortion?

[uppityperson]

228. Search is an interesting function on DU.

[Iris]

229. er...yeah. I guess so.

:shrug:

[Azalea]

230. No

But she shouldn't be able to force him to pay for a child he doesn't want , love or care about. He shouldn't be forced to acknowledge or have his name on the birth certificate. I'd feel the same way about court mandated child support pushed on women who gave their children up for adoption with the hopes she'll "come around" to wanting to be a mommy. It's the same thing.

[Iris]

231. child support is not required in hopes to making someone want to be a parent.

It's to support the child.

[Azalea]

232. But

why is an forced t support a child h doesn't want? This isn't a tax that everyone is paying this is money that he pays alone to go to someone that he would have gladly given up for adoption, terminated his parental rights to or had he been a woman, aborted with relief. Why does the next 18 years of his financial life go towards supporting someone else's decision that he completely disagrees with?

[uppityperson]

233. Sometimes that 2 minutes of enjoyment is very costly.

He decided to have sex. He needs to take responsibility. You sound like someone who was "roped" into having to pay child support to a child you made and really resent it.

[Azalea]

235. No

I sound like someone who thinks child support should be reserved for wanted children. If the father is an active participant in the child's life then yes he SHOULD be forced to pay because parenthood comes with a price and he accepts that price when he accepts paternity. However anyone, male or female who wishes to terminate their parental rights should be able to do so, and do so with privacy. Their name should NOT appear on the birth certificate and they should not be forced to spend two seconds with the child or pay a dime towards anything.

I think its despicable you can force someone by law to pay money for a child they do not want yet a aprent can deny giving blood or an organ to a child they claim to want or love. Not having child support would mean the custodial parent would have to work harder to be responsible for their decision to be a parent post natal/post conception.

It's childish to even want child support from someone who never wanted the child in the first place and makes you no better than the pro-lifers who make the SAME argument that having sex=consenting to being a parent. It's a smack in the face to the very grounds of reproductive rights.

[iverglas]

259. it's quite the hobby horse you're riding here

But it just keeps on not making sense.


I sound like someone who thinks child support should be reserved for wanted children. If the father is an active participant in the child's life then yes he SHOULD be forced to pay because parenthood comes with a price and he accepts that price when he accepts paternity.

Do children exist in your universe somewhere?

What of the child's interest in having a relationship with a parent, and right to have that relationship if it is available?

You are clearly saying that parenthood is a commodity.

People who wish to have children must "pay the price" for them, i.e. pay for their support -- solely, as custodial parents with non-visiting other parents, and contributorily, as visiting parents. You have to pay to play. No tickee, no washee, as an earlier generation would have said.

Children themselves are essentially commodities, in your worldview. I can't see any difference between children and pets, or sportscars, in what you say.


However anyone, male or female who wishes to terminate their parental rights should be able to do so, and do so with privacy.

And exactly why should they have to do this before birth (or shortly after, whatever), per you?

Why should a non-custodial parent who lived with the other parent and the child for years before the parents separated not be able to do the same thing? Just say to the child: I relinquish thee, I relinquish thee, I relinquish thee. No more contact and thus no more contribution to support.

Why are you still yammering about "parental rights" when the issue is plainly child support?


It's childish to even want child support from someone who never wanted the child in the first place

Any chance you're aware of how many sole-support mothers do NOT claim or receive child support from their children's fathers?


Riddle me this.

In many cases, the impetus for collecting child support comes not from the mother, but from the state. A woman who is in receipt of social assistance (where I'm at, and I assume most places) has an obligation to disclose the father's identity and pursue a child support claim.

Most women in that situation I have known (personally and in my law practice) would rather have had nothing to do with the man or his money. The child support claim almost always led to an access claim by the father, who would never have shown a moment's interest in the child, and did so only as a bargaining chip in a support dispute: if the woman withdrew or reduced her claim, he'd withdraw his custody or access claim. For a woman on social assistance, this is not an option, of course.

So what is your plan for families in that situation? Stop requiring women in this situation to claim and collect child support? I've gathered you don't think the public should pick up the tab, so I doubt that.

Cut off the social assistance if the woman does not claim and try to collect child support? Simply deny benefits to women who have children they "can't afford"? If that's your plan, we can see exactly how much of a damn you do give about children, other than as commodities that those who want them must buy and pay for.

Compel women unable to support children to use contraception or terminate pregnancies? Take their children away once they're born? The rights violations and charges to the public purse would just be the beginnings of the problems there.


All this yammering of yours about who should do what with and to whom is just utterly pointless.

Women have babies. It's one of those facts of life. If they didn't, we'd be in somewhat dire straits.

Arrangements have to be made for the support of children. Pronouncements like yours about the character of women who claim support and the huge burden imposed on the men they claim it from are just utterly pointless. I may think that things should fall up rather than down, or we should all eat nothing but tofu, or the U.S. should adopt a parliamentary system of government. Life would be a lot better if everybody and everything just did what I said. But sadly for all of us, it doesn't work that way.

In one of the posts you have been spattering around, you referred to women being unable to take maternity leave without losing their jobs. Well, where I'm at, women have 6 weeks of leave directly associated with childbirth and immediate post-natal child care, and women and their partners may split another 35 weeks of parental leave, with regular employment insurance benefits paid. Anyone with sufficient employment hours for EI benefits qualifies. (In view of the new economy, there is currently a debate about extending benefits to the "self-employed", i.e. the pieceworkers of the 21st century.)

Measures like this enhance women's economic security, and that is crucially important to children's welfare.

But there simply is no reason to place the full burden of child support on the mother's (or more generally, custodial parent's) shoulders.

And it simply is not GOOD SOCIAL POLICY to do this. It would diminish children's economic security. Children are not at fault. And it would diminish many women's ability to rear their children, leading to more children being placed in state care, or simply living in poverty. How is that good social policy?

Would it deter some women from having children? Possibly. Is that good social policy? No. It is not good social policy to assign childbearing to any particular social class and put it out of reach for others -- also recognizing that some ethnic and other minorities are disproportionately represented in the various social classes in issue. And hey, what about the less developed world? We in the developed world (the in loco parentis figures), paying support for the children we never chose to have, who could easily have been aborted, should not have to do so? That would fix them, wouldn't it? They'd just stop having babies altogether. Or not.

The way to improve the social and economic status of sole-support mother-led families is not to impose disincentives on the choice; it is to improve women's social and economic status. (And ditto for less developed countries. Economic development always and everywhere results in individuals limiting family size.)

If all the whining men asked to give up their unfair economic advantages and privileges, demanded that their society ensure equality of access and benefits for girls and women in every aspect of life, so that the distribution of those benefits did not disadvantage women to start with ... well, for starters, fewer women might be having sex with all these loser men.

[Iris]

234. So, once again, you are still supporting the that a man can force a woman to have an abortion

[Azalea]

236. What?

How would he be forcing her to have an abortion by not financing her decision to keep teh child?

It's like saying you were forced into buying a used car because your parents or the government wouldn't co-sign/help you pay for a new one. If you WANT to be a parent, you have to realize that children require money and if you want that responsibility that's what it takes. If you don't have a lot of money, you should be mature and responsible enough to work harder and save as much as you can to have at least enough to provide for basic needs.

I have no respect for the system of child support or the people who request it. Men are NOT the only people who pay child support, women do too and usualy its for a child they wanted to give up for adoption that the father came to reclaim and then forced her into parenthood by going for child support.

But considering you have this view that child support is for the child and every child deserves it, you probably see no problem with that either.

[Iris]

238. yes, I'm an ogre b/c I believe every chidl deserves child support.

And being pro-choice, I believe women should be coerced neither to have an abortion or to have a child.

I'd like to see some statistics on the number of women who tried to give a child up for adoption only to have the father take custody of the child. You don't hear much about single fathers relying on child support to raise their children but maybe I'm just not reading the right things.

[Azalea]

239. Well look @ that...

You don't hear much about single fathers relying on child support to raise their children

Say that again until the point seeps in about how humilitaing asking for child support is and what it says about a woman's ability to take charge and responsibility for her own choices.

Children do not deserve to be born, they do not deserve the support of their biological parents, they deserve the support of the people or person who DECIDES to parent to them.

[Iris]

240. I would not be humiliated to ask for child support.

[uppityperson]

243. "how humilitaing asking for child support is "? Good grief

So all those rulings in divorce cases with children, all those formulas set in place to determine who pays what to support the child(ren), those are all humiliating?

No True Feminist would EVER "ask" for child support?

Children do not deserve the financial support of both parents, only the one who is most active in raising them? Damn those uppity children anyway!

Child support is for the child(ren). I know several single fathers who are getting child support from the mother. It happens, often. That is why there are laws and formulas, to help children survive more easily than they could otherwise by holding both parents responsible.

[Scout]

237. look, just get a fucking clue: if a man is going to worry about his sperm, he should be more

careful where he leaves it.

he knows the risks, he knows the rules, but he chooses to fuck anyway. he KNOWS that the decision of whether or not to abort is the woman's ... so don't take a chance on giving them that "control" over you and keep your sperm away from them.

poor babies, they are so used and violated by those evil bitches stealing their sperm!

i can't decide if your defense of them is laughable, or pitiable.

[Azalea]

241. Yeah

The audacity of a woman to think women are fully capable of raising children out of poverty without the help of someone born with a penis.

The audacity of a woman to think having sex doesn't equate to consenting to be a parent regardless of your gender.

The audacity of a woman to think when a woman makes a choice she understands the full gravity of that decision and can support that decision of her own accord.

Wow. And You are pro-choice or pro women can't do shit without men because men are just that much better than women so we need help to have an advantage because having a uterus makes us ooooh soo inferior.

And what pray tell do you suppose of two lesbians who adopt? Should one mother NOT be held responsible for her decision to be a parent simply because she isn't the biological parent? Are adoptive parents off the hook for taking care of their children because the ones responsible are the ones who had sex?

Most single fathers raise their children without ever asking a DIME of the biological mother or the government because he fully considered what parenthood meant and the responsibility that entails. He knew she may have an abortion and if she didn't he wanted custody and that would cost him. He knew if she didn't want to be a parent it would be crummy to force parenthood on her. But women, we just can't possibly be THAT responsible, who needs personal responsiblity when men are around to foot the bill right?

Please.

I'm a storng independent woman and I think every woman is capable of standing on her own two fucking feet without a boost or the wallet of a man.

You can continue thinking women can't do it alone.

[Scout]

242. nope, now you are making shit up

"You are pro-choice or pro women can't do shit without men because men are just that much better than women so we need help to have an advantage because having a uterus makes us ooooh soo inferior"

has nothing whatsoever to do with my reasons.

"And what pray tell do you suppose of two lesbians who adopt? Should one mother NOT be held responsible for her decision to be a parent simply because she isn't the biological parent? Are adoptive parents off the hook for taking care of their children because the ones responsible are the ones who had sex?"

now that is really laughable

"Most single fathers raise their children without ever asking a DIME of the biological mother or the government because he fully considered what parenthood meant and the responsibility that entails."

got a link to prove that assertion? how many times, in divorce, do the fathers actually bother to seek full custody of the children?

"But women, we just can't possibly be THAT responsible, who needs personal responsiblity when men are around to foot the bill right?"

so by this you mean, the only way women take "personal responsiblity" for a pregnancy is by having the child and raising it themselves? that is the ONLY ACCEPTABLE way a woman takes responsibility for her life? if she has an abortion, that's not taking responsibility? if she has the child and keeps it with support from the father that's not taking responsibility? if she has the child and gives it up for adoption that's not taking responsibility? seems you support only one choice for women ... what the sperm donor wants.

:puke:

edit: typo

[uppityperson]

245. Reminds me of a mind-game someone tried on my way back

"I want to f* you!"
Go away
"What's the matter, aren't you liberated?"
F* off asshole

Too bad we aren't True Liberal Women, eh?

[Azalea]

248. Dependent

Yeah you need other people's money to finance your decisions. That makes you dependant.

[uppityperson]

251. you are not making sense again.

[iverglas]

260. Ah, I get it

Yeah you need other people's money to finance your decisions. That makes you dependant.

Like I was dependent on other people's money to pay for the public schools I attended, and the infrastructure of the universities I attended.

Like I am dependent on other people's money to pay for my municipal water system, and the fire department, and the roads I drive on, and ........

Hell, I don't need to drink water or have access to protective services or get from here to the grocery store. I should be 100% independent and carry my own water, boil it over a fire made with sticks I've collected, throw it at anything that catches fire, and grow my own tofu.

I'll bet you're a big fan of Wendy McElroy.

... Lordy, it's still around.

http://www.ifeminists.net/e107_plugins/enews/enews.php

[uppityperson]

261. "Like I was dependent on other people's money to pay for the public schools I attended" unlike

"Like I was dependent on other people's money to pay for the public schools I attended, and the infrastructure of the universities I attended."

Which makes sense as you can write a complete sentence with decent grammar and minimal misspellings. Unlike others here who pride themselves on their total independence.

[iverglas]

262. gasp

Never misspellings! Mistypings, yes. ;)

But then, I was taught to touch-type when I was 11, because all my class was going to have to type doctoral theses some day. Damned lucky that was, since even though I didn't make it past 2 degrees, my current occupation does involve typing reams of stuff all day long.

The guys I articled for, who hadn't been able to afford secretarial services for most of the time they'd been in practice, concluded their letters "JB/nsw": "Joe Blow/non-sexist worker". So I concluded all my correspondence, once I was in the same position: "IVG/hos". The first person to guess got it in one: her own self.

Anyhow, I do feel for people who were never taught to type properly and find themselves adrift in cyberspace and the information economy. Learning how to type with yer thumbs on a cell phone touchpad isn't really the best prep for this form of communication.



Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of the party. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of th eparty. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of the party. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of th eparty. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of th eparty. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of th eparty. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of the party. Now is the time for all good women


Phew! 120 words in that minute. I didn't actually think I was that fast. Well, they're mostly short words with no punctuation. And my recurrent error: "th eparty". I train my spellcheck to fix that. ;)

Speaking of words, kind ones always gratefully accepted!

[Azalea]

270. Your best shot

is to keep using the pro-life sex is evil and you are to be punished for it anthem and cite my imperfect typing on a casual debate forum?

LMAO When my career depends on my ability to proofread what I post here to ensure there are no gramatical errors, I'll be more careful. Until then, you get raw posts.

[uppityperson]

271. You never took a logic class either, did you?

[Azalea]

246. WRONG

If she has an abortion and takes responsibility for that choice by owning that choice and not blaming it on anyone

If she gives the baby up for adoption

OR if she keeps the child and be a single mother without begging for money via the courts from the sperm donor.

And how exectly are two lesbians raising a family laughable? Either you must pay because you are the biological parent PERIOD or you must pay when you choose to be a parent PERIOD. Anything in between allows for a bunch of hypocrisy.

And yes RIGHT NOW there are divorced lesbians with children going through such things where teh courts dont award child support because well, the woman without biological ties to the child didn't make the child. Same for two men. But instead of changing that the focus is on making sure men learn to keep their penis to themselves.

Do you say to people who have HIV "hey you should have kept your legs closed?" WHy say it to men who find themselves the unwitting sperm donor to fatherless children who now "deserve" their financial support.

And yes fathers in divorce typically fight for custody its rare when they don't, the vast majority of ALL child support concern illegitimate children and a father who wants to escape parenthood altogether. Any man disputing child support who WANTS to be a father ought to be as ashamed of himself as any woman who tries to pin child support on a man who never wanted to be a father from the jump.

[uppityperson]

249. Making more shit up

Lesbian friends who have divorced, one pays child support to the one with custody. Child support is for the child and is awarded by the courts without anyone having to beg.

[Azalea]

266. You are begging

the MOMENT you have to drag the courts into it.

Now why would a lesbian have to pay another lesbian child support if,as you have said so much the one with the penis has to pay because its his sperm? No gaetes no child support right?

Its all or nothing, either a PARENT has to pay or a gamete donor has to pay. You cna be a parent without biological ties just as you can not be a parent and do have biological ties. Only the parent, the willing parent should pay child support to support a child they wanted. No one should be forced to support an unwanted child.

[uppityperson]

269. Getting a legal divorce = begging. Oh. Kay.

Child support is for the child and is awarded by the courts without anyone having to beg. It is part of the divorce procedure.

[Scout]

253. "And how exectly are two lesbians raising a family laughable?"

they aren't, your posts are. they are all over the place, as you keep grasping at straws and spinning away trying to make a rational, logical argument.

show me proof that fathers in divorce typically fight for custody. then show me in how many cases where fathers actually fight/sue for full custody do they get it. i bet actual data do not support your claims.

show me proof that "the vast majority of ALL child support concern illegitimate children and a father who wants to escape parenthood altogether"

you owe me a new keyboard for this one: "men who find themselves the unwitting sperm donor" oh noes, i unwittingly left my sperm in some woman, now she wants me to pay my share for the baby she's going to have.... oh poor man, he must have fallen down on her and his penis just fell into her vagina again and again and again until he spewed his precious seed.

no one is telling men they have to keep it in their pants. but they know the rules from the jump: that our society does not allow them to coerce nor forbid a woman to abort, and that if she does decide to have a child it is perfectly acceptable, legal, moral that he will be required to bear part of the financial burden of raising that child. if he don't like the rules, get them changed or don't play ... but don't play knowing full well what the consequences can be, then cry foul and whine when the game doesn't turn out how you want.

[uppityperson]

256. Did you see where there seems confusion between support and visitation?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=217&topic_id=6786&mesg_id=7181

I wonder what MrUP will say if I use the "unwitting sperm donor" line on him.

[Azalea]

267. LOL @ moral child support for unwanted children

That's pure and utter bullshit and sounds like something someone from the depths of hell would say.

There is nothing moral about being forced to pay for a child you wish never existed. Nothing at all moral about that. I liken it to the morality of having to pay for the healthcare of deathrow inmates, rapists and pedaphiles.

[uppityperson]

272. You didn't read the post you are replying to, or else are picking out individual words.

Try again.

"it is perfectly acceptable, legal, moral that he will be required to bear part of the financial burden of raising that child."

Impregnating a woman and abandoning the offspring seems less moral than being required to bear part of the financial burden of raising that child, but hey, that is just a stupid librul's thoughts.

You are comparing a child to "deathrow inmates, rapists and pedaphiles". Wild.

[iverglas]

273. it isn't just the comparison

You are comparing a child to "deathrow inmates, rapists and pedaphiles". Wild.

It's also that, apparently, someone is of the opinion that it is good public policy to deprive a person of their liberty, thus preventing them from providing for their own health care, and then watch as they sicken and perhaps die.

I'm no liberal myself, but I don't think even a proper liberal holds opinions like that.

Peeyoo.

[Azalea]

279. No again.

I am comparing supporting an unwanted child to supporting other unwanted members of society. There is no difference.

There is NOTHING immoral about not being a parent to a child you do not want. You have a romantic view of biology and reproduction.

[uppityperson]

285. Copycat. TS'd and a copycat

[uppityperson]

244. "Most single fathers raise their children without ever asking a DIME of the biological mother or the

"Most single fathers raise their children without ever asking a DIME of the biological mother or the government because he fully considered what parenthood meant and the responsibility that entails. He knew she may have an abortion and if she didn't he wanted custody and that would cost him. He knew if she didn't want to be a parent it would be crummy to force parenthood on her. But women, we just can't possibly be THAT responsible, who needs personal responsiblity when men are around to foot the bill right?"

Bull Feces.

"I'm a storng independent woman and I think every woman is capable of standing on her own two fucking feet without a boost or the wallet of a man."

Bull Excrement again.

Damn those laws for holding parents financially responsible, eh? Any time a judge rules for child support for a child, that means the custodial parent isn't "storng" or responsible?

Bull Puckey

[Azalea]

247. Yup

A responsible parent takes care of their children without begging for help from nonparents. Biology doesn't make one a parent, it makes you a sperm or egg donor. Being a parent requires custody, interaction, love and support. A person who can reproduce who doesn't wish to be a parent and doesn't take on that responsibility isn't a parent. Sorry if you think anyone with working reproductive parts are parents but I disagree.

And what do you mean Bull Excrement? I am strong I don't cower under your or anyone else's dissenting opinions and I take care of my children with my husband because we JOINTLY decided to be parents. If I had to do it alone I am more than capable of bearing that financial responsibility. Or is it that you think women just can't stand on their own two fucking feet without the support of men?

[uppityperson]

250. "every woman is capable" of financially supporting herself and her children.

And anyone who isn't, who may appreciate the fact that a man actually takes financial responsibility for his actions and child(ren) is.....not strong? Not motivated? Not "capable"? Perhaps even a "welfare queen"?

[Azalea]

252. *sigh*

Why..do..you..keep..messing..this..up?

1) Parenthood is based on accepting responsibility for a child, whether or not that child has any biological relation to you.

2) Consenting to sex is not consenting to parenthood.

3) Both men and women can use birth control and it fail, they can also use protection against STDs/STIs and it fail, neither means they consented to, wanted or deserve parenthood or STDs/STIs.

4) The only person(s) responsible for children are the children's parents. A biological mother or father is not necessarily a parent.

5) Parenthood is not dissolved with the relationship one had with the co-parent

6) A man OR A WOMAN who decided to be a parent should in fact, and if need be forced, to take financial responsibility for their children at all times.

7) A man OR A WOMAN who has decided NOT to be a parent, regardless of biological ties to any child should never be forced or coerced into providing finances to, interacting with or acknowledging any child.

Parenthood should not be forced on anyone or be a crime punishable by a sentence of court ordered fines under the auspice of child support for the next 18-25 years of anyone's life.

If you unilaterally decide to be a parent, you unilaterally take full responsibility for that decision and the resulting child. The goverment, the sperm donor, or the egg donor should not bear the burden of your decision. If you find that you can not afford the responsibility of being a parent then you should consider your decision to become a single parent. Upon consideration you should take into account the things, legal and dignified that you are willing to do in order to take charge and responsibility for the unilateral decision to become a parent.

Becoming pregnant means a woman can abort,give up for adoption/terminate her parental rights, become a single parent if she does not have the support of the sperm donor, or co-parent if she does have and the support of the sperm donor.

Impregnanting a woman means a man can decide then and there whether or not he wishes to become a parent. However, his decision to become a parent lays at the mercy of the pregnant woman to continue her pregnancy. If the pregnant woman so chooses to continue her pregnancy to full term he should , by force from the courts if necessary, take full responsibility for that decision and resulting child financially and otherwise. Whether he has to do so alone if the woman wishes not to be a parent or do so with her if she chooses to be a parent as well, once the child is born and he had already decided that he wants to be a parent if she doesn't abort he is just as responsible in every way as the mother is or even moreso if she chooses not to be a mother (ie wanted to give the child up for adoption).

{b]Neither should be looking for handouts from a non-parent, regardles sof the biological relationship any other person has to the child, only the parent is to be responsible. If they do, they are yes, immature,unreliable incompetent parents who can not take care of their children or their decisions independantly. I liken them to overgrown teenagers. They want to be able to make decisions but want their parents and even feel entitled to having their parents pay for them. Teenagers are still children as are people who do crap like seek child support from a non-parent because they can't hack and lack the motivation to try to hack it on their own.

[uppityperson]

255. The law disagrees with you. So do I. Child support is owed a child you make.

The only way you can unilaterally "decide to be a parent" is either parthenogenesis or a sperm donation. Otherwise, if a man impregnates a woman, he is a father to the offspring and legally, financially, holds some responsibility towards said offspring.

If you define "parenthood" as taking care of a child, of that action vs genetic donor, then no, that "parenthood" is not forced on anyone or be a crime punishable by a sentence of court ordered fines under the auspice of child support for the next 18-25 years of anyone's life." What IS forced on anyone though, is legal financial responsibility toward your offspring. That is the law.


"Impregnanting a woman means a man can decide then and there whether or not he wishes to become a parent. " ONLY if you are using "actively participating in raising the offspring" for the definition of "parent". However, if you are using "HAS offspring", you are wrong that no, the man does not have the decision as to whether or not the offspring is born or aborted. You may think it unfair but the woman is the one who has the right to make that decision.

If she choses to give birth, and such a thing happens successfully, then legally the man is financially responsible towards the offspring.

I am glad that the courts understand the financial responsibility that both genetic parents have towards any offspring. And I am glad that the courts understand that no matter how well someone plans their life, sometimes things happen that can negatively impact the ability to financially care for children independently, whether a person is male or female.

[Azalea]

263. You are obviously

missing the point that I make and have made that women decide whether or not to abort she shouldn't have a say in whether or not the sperm donor contributes his time, energy, or money to the child she unilaterally brings into being by not aborting.

[uppityperson]

268. Only if you conceive via parthenogenesis

ps, it is the COURT that determines child support

[iverglas]

274. and you are very carefully avoiding the point

the child she unilaterally brings into being by not aborting.

that you are spouting nonsense, despite how carefully it has been explained to you.

Things are not brought into being by someone NOT doing something.

A child is brought into being by a process that begins with fertilization of an ovum and, if all goes in a particular way, ends with delivery.

That process can be interrupted. The non-interruption of the process is NOT what brings the child into being.

If I throw a rock at your head and you could interrupt the process that will otherwise end in you being knocked unconscious by jumping off the bridge you are standing on, your failure to jump off the bridge is NOT what brings the crack in your skull into being.

If you then bleed from the head but refuse a blood transfusion and take your chances, because of your religious beliefs or your concerns about the safety of the blood supply, and you die, I'm really not going to avoid a homicide conviction by saying your refusal of blood caused your death. Your refusal of a blood transfusion isn't what killed you; my rock is what killed you.

What was somebody just saying about logic classes? I dunno whether it's so much a need for logic as just a need for basic sense.

[Azalea]

278. ????

So a successfully aborted fetus can still become a child that someone is financially responsible for?

A child does not come into being if it is destroyed as a fetus.

No gestation= no child. Period, that's basic science or are you saying there is now a mechanical way of incubating human embroys and fetuses to full term viable babies?

In life, inaction can create an undesireable result. A tumor can turn into life threatening cancer by NOT getting the correct treatment for it. Speeding can turn into a devastating car accident by NOT correcting your spped and being aware of others around you. Smoking a cigarette can result in a fire by NOT putting the fire out before discarding it. An unwanted pregnancy can result in an unwanted child by NOT terminating it.

[iverglas]

282. So you have no interest at all in civil discourse?

So a successfully aborted fetus can still become a child that someone is financially responsible for?

Looks like the answer to my question is 'yes'.


A tumor can turn into life threatening cancer by NOT getting the correct treatment for it.

A tumour turns into life threatening cancer by the natural progression of the disease process.


I didn't get treatment for a tumour last week.

My failure to get cancer treatment didn't cause me to have a life-threatening cancer.

My mum did get treatment for a tumour last week.

If she had not done so, and eventually the lymphoma killed her, the lymphoma, not her failure to get treatment for it, would have killed her.


I didn't have an abortion last week.

No child will be born as a result of my failure to have an abortion.

Git it?

[Azalea]

283. Civil

with someone who thinks posting a noose is ok? WIth someone who has come with eprsonal attacks? LOL Oh please.

The point, whether you take/get it or not, is that her decision to have a child instead of an abortion is hers alone and so is teh responsibility that goes with that decision. If the mother makes enough money to take care of herself and the child the child doesn't need money from anyone else. If she can NOT make enough for herself and her child she is relying on someone else to help finance her decision to be a parent.

[uppityperson]

287. That was me and you obviously have never heard of

handing someone enough rope to hang themselves with. Shame, with all your education and experience and all.

[Scout]

258. WE aren't the ones who are messed up....

"Parenthood is based on accepting responsibility for a child, whether or not that child has any biological relation to you"

"Impregnanting a woman means a man can decide then and there whether or not he wishes to become a parent."

"A biological mother or father is not necessarily a parent"
the biological mother and father are the DE FACTO legal parents until/unless they legally sign away their rights and responsibilities.

your posts are some of the biggest steaming loads of crap i've read on DU in quite a while. and that's saying something, 'cuz there's lots of steaming loads of crap posted here.

[Azalea]

264. NOwhere

in this country can a man voluntarily sign over or terminate his parental rights. If he could he would and this entire conversation would be moot.

[Scout]

275. when a child is given up for adoption, the parents terminate their rights

you are just a waste of time now.

[uppityperson]

276. Indeed.

To all of that

[Azalea]

277. and you

are a waste of abortion rights.

[Scout]

280. "and you are a waste of abortion rights"

oooooh good comeback

:rofl:

[Azalea]

281. yup

How old are you? Its quite possible she didnt have access to a safe and legal abortion and thats why you are here.

[Scout]

284. so this is your cowardly way of trying to say my mother should have aborted me?

and you complain about civil discourse

[uppityperson]

286. What a truly nasty thing to write. I am glad you got TS'd over this.

[Scout]

254. "I take care of my children with my husband because we JOINTLY decided to be parents"

well la-di-fucking da for you! aren't you miss lucky prissy pants! YOUR man didn't bail on you after you fucked him!

i'm sure that makes you oh so much better than those slutty women who steal men's sperm to force them to pay for children they don't want!

[uppityperson]

257. Steal those men's "unwitting" sperm.

[Azalea]

265. You still dont get it

Being a married or single parent isn't better than the other, its being a responsible vs. childish parent that makes one better than the other.

My husband and I married, we decided to have children I got pregnant we decided to stick with the plan of becoming parents and we are still together raising our child and planning on more. Had I decided married or not that I was just going to be a parent and he said he did not want to be one, even if he went to the lengths of vasectomy (because pregnancy has occured post vasectoy and child support still sought) I would have done it on my own without asking him for nothing other than his parental rights be terminated.

She's not slutty just because she's a single parent but she's less than adult for asking someone else to finance her choices in life and despicable for feeling entitled to it.

[jcarterhero]

288. Because it's up to the female

After all, she is the one carrying the fetus

[Healthyreformgal08]

292. I am pro choice now because..

I used to be pro life until I seen the last few years the pro lifers protest and cruel to woman that is experiencing pain and fear when they are having children. I didn't like in one town pro lifers sent through the mail dead baby pictures in letters and also showing dead baby picture signs. I also didn't like the protesters of pro lifers that shout in the cars of passer byes and saying God is condemning America. This was a scare tactic and putting people into fear. Plus everyone should have a right to choose. A pro Choicer does not mean they are will abort the baby.

[ki83760]

293. because it's right

[Piwi2009]

295. Im prochoice because it's the American way

We guarantee the liberty of individuals against the power of the state. There's some things we just don't compel against a person's wishes, no matter how noble it is, even childbirth.

[h9socialist]

296. I am proudly Pro-Choice . . .

. . . because gender equality is a fraud as long as a woman can be regulated by the State because of her reproductive potential. When the government has the right to regulate what goes on inside someone's body like this, it is not only intrusive and demeaning, it is also tyrannical.

If we want to reduce the number of abortions, the best way to do it is to make society more accomodating -- make it possible for young people to worry more about being nurturing parents than economic providers. Of course, that upsets Limbaugh and Hannity who see neglect of family as being a virtue if it better supplies the capitalist labor market.

[Teramis]

297. Because women are at risk of infection if they are forced to abort in an alley

Our nation is founded on the grounds that everyone is free. Women shouldn't be an exception.

[beyurslf]

298. Because women should have control over their bodies. As a man, I don't have

the government telling me what my doctor and I can decide is best for me, so why should women have that?

[uranutan]

299. I don't care.

Because I don't give a shit. Do whatever you want with your fetus, it's none of my business.

[Name removed]

300. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

301. Thank you mods. eom

[Scout]

302. yes, thank you very much moderators :hi: n/t

[Hepburn]

305. Pre Roe v. Wade...I found someone who had bled to death from an illegal abortion.

Lived in the dorm room across from mine. I will NEVER forget that...ever.

[Safya]

306. Because women are free and they can do whatever they want

What is in my body is my issue not any one else.

[uncommon]

308. Because I believe in the full personal bodily sovereignty of women. Because women are human.

Because control over one's body and medical treatment are basic human rights.

[Deep13]

310. A few reasons.

An embryo is not a person because there are no souls. A fetus probably isn't either.

Women definitely are people.

Requiring women to bring a fetus to term is a form of slavery and a violation of the equal protection of the laws.

Due to our increasing population and the pressure it puts on the global environment, no method of birth control should be dismissed out of hand.

By the way, I'm pro-abortion, not just pro-choice. I think in most circumstances, terminating an unwanted pregnancy is a reasonable and morally defensible thing to do.

[Name removed]

311. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

313. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[PanoramaIsland]

323. I am pro-choice because I am pro-civil liberties, pro-woman and pro-science.

[tortoise1956]

324. Because I believe in freedom

Please understand that I am bothered by the idea of ending a human life. HOWEVER, it's not my place to tell others what they should do with their bodies. If they choose to have an abortion, that is their decision to make. They should not be expected to have to follow my religious and philosophical belief systems any more than I would allow them to force me to follow theirs.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to force their beliefs on others doesn't deserve to call themselves Americans - but that's another subject completely...

[Zoeisright]

325. Privacy and a woman's right to control her own body.

Two people can't have the same rights in one body. The woman's right trumps any rights the fetus might have.

[athena]

327. Because torture is wrong regardless of gender.

Childbirth is a painful and risky procedure. No one should have the right to make a person go through childbirth against her will. I can't fathom how anybody can possibly think this is OK.

Just think about the outcry that would ensue if the state decided to force men to donate their kidneys against their will.

[slackmaster]

328. I trust women to be the best judges of what is best for their bodies and their lives

:hi:

[ehrnst]

329. I'm against forced childbearing or forced abortion, and believe that both should be by consent.

Taking reproductive choices away from women always turns out badly.

This is why the mainstream medical community supports choice.

[pootbutta]

330. why?

its so simple... its my body!! period.