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Most of that essay is rather insulting to women generally, and to the pro-choice movement, beginning with the utterly unwarranted "pro-choice/death" thing. Confusing the two is laughable. There are many pro-choice women who would never have an abortion themselves. Pro-choice is NOT pro-death or pro-abortion.



Less precious than what?

It makes it a great deal less precious to the poor woman who has to live with it inside her for nine months as a constant reminder. A man has raped you, invaded your body, and you have his genetic material inside you, growing. The idea of him being inside you to begin with is horrific. The idea of part of him remaining inside you for that long is difficult even to think about, let alone suffer through.

Some woman are willing to keep the child and I applaud them for this. Other women are not, cannot, and will not, and I support them also. That's where this "choice" thing comes in.



Babies who are aborted are not willingly conceived, though. You don't willingly conceive a child and then just decide you don't want it anymore unless there are some really unfortunate circumstances or the baby has something terribly wrong with it.

And it's not murder either way. Murder is a legal term. wink



You can disown your own children. Just because it has your genetic material doesn't mean you want it, or wish to own it in any way. You can give babies away in adoption and disown them that way, why can't you disown them and then have them removed from your body?



Yes. Particularly if there was a risk of anencephaly or cyclopia.

I realise there probably wouldn't be, but frankly these are disturbing enough that any risk is too much.



You don't believe that people can be childfree?

Let me make this absolutely clear. The concept of being pregnant physically disgusts me. I do not now, have never, and will never want to be pregnant. Even if I eventually decide to have children, which is highly unlikely, I will not get them through becoming pregnant.

Because EW.



Why? Why does a child's right to live override the mother's right to choose? Why should it? Given the actual dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, why should a child's right to live override the mother's right to protect her physical health?

You seem to be supporting the idea of childfree couples being saddled with children. Why would you want this poor kid being raised by parents who didn't want him? Why would you want it being incubated by a woman who hates it?



Your moral obligation may be at odds with the moral obligations of others.

Again. It's not murder.



And as such, you will never have an abortion. That doesn't mean that you get to project your percception onto other people. Not everyone thinks the same way that you do here. You don't get to tell other women that they are imprisoned in their own bodies for nine months whether they like it or not.



It's not murder.

You are entitled to speak strongly about this. I acknowledge and respect your feelings on this issue. It is important to stand up for what you believe in.

I think abortion will always be a difficult thing to deal with. Hormones are involved. Women have been trying to get rid of babies for hundreds of years, via the use of herbs and poisons and such. (I have an old spellbook thing. Most of the spells are either how to get pregnant, or how to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy. Most of the latter involve poisonous ingredients.) Nowadays it's MUCH safer to get an abortion, but that doesn't mean it's easier on the woman who makes that choice.

You can't say what goes through the minds of each woman who has an abortion. I know I would absolutely have one if I fell pregnant. I'd probably still be quite upset about it.



How the hell is any of that even remotely related to abortion?!

FUN FACT! Crime, particularly youth crime, was projected to go WAY up in the 90s. In fact it dropped a little. Why? Because of abortion. Yes, thousands of unwanted children were never born, never grew up in a bad environment, never decided crime was the only way to go, never robbed a store and shot a clerk for a few thousand dollars.

I will find the article related to these statistics, because I think it's interesting and it would be unfair of me not to provide it.

And if you think brothers didn't kill brothers before abortion, you should probably go read Genesis or something.



Many of us don't believe in sin.

Question. Where is abortion listed as a sin? I know it didn't count as murder in the bible because the punishment for killing a woman's unborn baby was about the same as killing her mule. You had to pay reparations or something.

Sins are all the same size, aren't they? All except blashpheming the holy spirit, or something. Clarification, somebody?



Because I love my husband. Also my husband doesn't live inside my uterus, sucking on my very lifeblood.



It is not Latin for "small child".





Pregnancy can be life-threatening danger.



Yes. I do.

A lot of time and money has gone into raising me. I am intelligent, I am fully developed, and I contribute to society. I am worth more than a lump of cells that cannot think, let alone survive on its own. Monetarily I am worth more, in fact, given the monetary investment that has gone into me. Money that has yet to go into our friend the foetus.



I'm getting a bit sick of this 'innocent' crap. The foetus is no more innocent than I am. I have not, to my knowledge, committed a crime.

This is a thing that is trespassing on somebody's body. Sure, it's not doing it intentionally, but it's still causing mental, emotional and physical distress to its host.

At any rate, I can give you an example. A couple have five kids. They scrape by. Their kids eat, but not enough. The woman gets pregnant. If they have another baby, they will not be able to afford to feed their children. They will not be able to clothe them, or provide medical care. I consider the lives of the five more important than the life of the foetus.

It's not a great example, but still.



Why do you persist with the belief that all women love their foetus?



Ungrateful? To whom?

I am grateful to my mother and the sacrifices she made for me. I know that my birth meant there were many things she couldn't do, and it saddens me that she didn't have the chance to do those things. Nevertheless, she did choose to have me, and to raise me, and yes, I am grateful to her for doing this. I don't see what that has to do with me and the choices I make in my own life, or how that would suddenly negate my gratitude.

My mother supports my choice to be childfree. In fact sometimes I think she's kinda jealous.



...except if myself plays host to a foetus, apparently. Then I don't get to have free will over myself.

I'm the sort of person who, if there was a five-year-old child and an adult, and I could only save one, would try to save the adult. Sure, the child probably has more years to live, but doesn't definitely have more years to live. And more time, effort and money has been invested in the adult's life than the child's. The death of the adult will affect more people.

Things get tricky when we talk about "worth". You might like children more than adults and that's fine. I like animals more than people, but they're not afforded the same legal protection.

Mostly I just went with it because she directly asked. Following it too far is a bit tangential to the current discussion.

Then again, I'm not sure anyone really has a "right" to live in some senses of the phrase... being alive is more of a happy accident. It's more having the right not to be killed, really. Our laws are mostly along the lines of "...so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights and lives of others". Being a foetus infringes on the very body and life of the mother.

It's not an easy thing. It's tricky, legally. It's tricky morally. As morals of this nature are more individual than societal, we have to rely on our own values. So we can't expect universal agreement. And for this specific reason choice in this area is important. You have the right to procreate. And some people really abuse this right. I mean, there are some people who really should not be breeding. But we don't get to go up to people and say "you're too stupid to have any more children, sorry" or even "you have to pass this parenting test before your ovum is allowed to fuse with his sperm". This might even be a good idea, as you'd end up with fewer children being abused or raised by unfit parents. But it's uncomfortable. The capacity to breed is so fundamental to living things in general that it "feels wrong" to say "you must prove you can do this well in order to be allowed to do it at all".

I think I've kinda migrated from my point. In any rate, you can choose to breed. I choose not to breed. I go to lengths to ensure that sex does not result in pregnancy. Regardless, accidents happen. This sucks. I value the rights of women, but also and in particular my right to my own body, and what happens to it. Some people value the rights of a foetus over that and that's fine, so long as they don't seek to impose their values over my own. They can choose what happens to their bodies, and I can choose what happens to mine.

And again, if we could just take the foetus out and it would survive that would be fine. Unfortunately, it cannot.

Anyway, I can't devote any more to the matter at present as I must rush off. I'm sure what I just said doesn't make a heap of sense as I'm kinda pressed for time, so I apologize for that.

I have never found the question of the legality of abortion to be a moral one relating to the notion of killing another human. Yes, I realize that the debate normally centers around the idea of when does life begin, but I think that completely misses the point and causes more unnecessary confusions with the issue.

We can all agree that a woman old enough to get pregnant is alive.
We can all realize that there will always be abortions, for medical reasons at least.
And I find it safe to say, there will always be at least one country where they are legal.

It would be a horrible abuse of wealth and power to only allow the most affluent of women to be able to afford traveling to another country to receive a safe abortion while forcing the most vulnerable members of society to the back streets and coat hangers. Ergo, in order to protect all the people in society that we all can agree are alive, abortion should be legal.

I'm glad that your evaluation of the moral situation allows each person to make their own choice, and acknowledges that you may not be right.

Our view of the situation does not allow us to simply stay out of what happens to others' bodies. Our evaluation requires us to act as surely as abolitionists felt required to act to end slavery. As a society that prides ourself on our freedoms, how can we stand by and let something that we see as the violation of the most fundamental freedom of millions continue?

The Bible says to protect those that cannot protect themselves. In that day, it was the widows and the orphans. Today, it is the unborn. Forgive us our zeal.

All I read was "BAW BAW BAW INAHSUNT BABEH BAW BAW BAW UR KILING EET!"
If she'd like to post her own original argument rather than copy-pasting someone else's (and then not citing it; that IS plagiarism and IS a reportable offense, FYI) then I might give a damn.


What everyone "knows" it to mean =|= what it actually means. Shall the Pro-Choicers start calling your lot Anti-Woman then, since we know what its meant by it?
This is the same issue that comes up in debates on what Wicca is and is not. Do not get me started.

Sweet; so if I need a kidney I can tap you for one? Thanks man.

Which is rather ironic considering it would involve essentially enslaving the woman.

I'm amused that you speak for all of society.
Why does what YOU see as a violation apply to everyone?

Pro-tip: I don't care what your holy books says biggrin Prove that it should take precedence over mine. Prove that your holy book should dictate what is and is not done with my body.
Actually I would say Orphans are still in that group. Which is why I'm still waiting for an answer for when all of you Pro-Lifers intend to mass adopt them all so that they can be protected from the crap-shoot that is the adoption system.
What about the homeless? Does no one remember hoboknifefights.com? Or the elderly - why do you guys just sit back as so many of our senior citizens rot away in nursing homes where they may be subject to neglect or even abuse? Or what about single-parent households who can barely afford to pay their housing costs, much less put food on the table; why aren't you howling about that? What about battered women (with or without children)? Are they not worthy of this same level of protection?
I mean, if you're all called to protect those who can not protect themselves you're doing a pretty shitty job of it. Might be a wise idea to expand your grounds.

Never said you had to agree with my perspective. Since you don't share my faith, I naturally don't expect you to agree with me. I was simply explaining why it is that what I believe calls me to action.

And yes, the homeless and the elderly should be receiving aid from Christians, as well (and they are, from some Christians). The elderly and the homeless are not being cut apart and killed en masse, however. I think the unborn need our help just a bit more desperately.

No, if there were not unborn lives at stake, then I would definitely support abortions (although I would want them much better regulated). Just pointing out that abortions are not even always for the girl's protection/convenience/benefit, either.

You know how much I love you, Violet?

But let's just put more kids who will never be adopted into the system. Why don't we start adopting African children if we care so much about children who are born into this world?

Better yet, adopt an African child who is affected with HIV.

Yes.

I care more about those kids than a feotus that will be born to an unwanting mother.