Welcome to Gaia! ::

I think she's justified, but that's because I'm pro-choice, not really "pro-choice unless..."

Just because I think she's 'justified' in seeking and getting an abortion doesn't mean I agree with her, think it's an ideal situation, or would do it myself. I would say that I think it's a sad situation.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "justified." You'll have to explain a bit before I'll try to answer your question. It's just a word that I have trouble with. For example, on an online quiz, I was once asked if I thought a person was justified in believing things without external verification. All I could do was sit there and wonder, "What do they mean by 'justified'? Are they asking if I think it is ok for a person to believe things without external verification, or are they asking if someone could make a convincing argument without external verification?"

That being said, I most certainly think it is her right to have an abortion, no matter the what reason is. If it is her decision to not use her body to create/support* a child, she doesn't need me to decide if her reasons are acceptable or not. It's her body, not mine. This situation wouldn't be an exception.

It's kind of like the answer you would get if you asked most people if a person was justified in not becoming an organ donor after they died because they wanted their corpse to be pretty. Not everyone would say that the aesthetics of a corpse is a good reason to not save someone's life, but most would agree that a person has the right to do with their body as they please.

*depending on your view of what pregnancy is

I really don't feel it is my place to tell other people what sort of children to adopt. I do feel that a lot of people are on the adoption waiting list for babies of their race. I know many people also go outside the country to get babies. I also know that many wonderful people adopt older children (I think that the most common age for adopting a child is 5), children outside of their own race, and children with special needs.

I think that people who adopt special needs children are amazing, and deserve a lot of respect and support. I don't know if I could deal with some of the special needs kids out there. I do want to adopt an older sibling group, someday.

I understand why some people want to adopt babies rather than older children (since older children can have problems due to other people "raising" them badly). I don't want to do that, though, even if I wasn't able to have biological children of my own. I'd rather adopt a sibling group of older children, because it is hard to find people who will adopt such children together.

I want people to adopt children who they can best care for, and that means not adopting children who have some trait that the adoptive parents can't deal with. For example, let's say you have a person who doesn't want to adopt a black baby. Would I prefer that this person felt that black babies were no different than white babies? Yes. Do I want this person "settling" for a black baby because that's all s/he can get and/or because s/he feels guilty about her/his feelings? Absolutely not. Children deserve to be loved completely, not merely tolerated. Children should never be viewed as something akin consolation prizes. The same thing applies to all other traits. Sex? Disability? Age? Hair color? I want people getting children they want completely, not children that these parents feel guilted into taking. That kind of a situation isn't going to end well for anyone involved, including the child.

However, I do feel that is more than a little deceptive to pressure women to not have abortions so that they can provide some childless couple with the "gift" of a child (an actual argument from my high school health class, among other places). After all, this implies that there is a lack of children waiting to be adopted. Few people tell these women that the childless couples out there could adopt, but they simply don't want the children already in the system. That being said, the whole slogan, "X million couples waiting to adopt," just sounds cooler than, "X million couples waiting to adopt a child meeting Y criterion because all the children who are already in the system don't meet Y criterion."

Would I support someone's choice to have an abortion based on something superficial like that when I otherwise would not? No. No, I wouldn't. For the same reason that I wouldn't support someone's choice to kill their born child for the same sort of reason, I wouldn't support abortion. And yes, I think I'd actually be pretty disgusted by someone who aborted her child for something like a harelip or mild cleft pallet, not to mention dwarfism, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I really don't have much tolerance for people who think that only "normal" people have worth to the point where they'd change their stance on something like that. I mean, if you support abortion for any reason at any time already, your position isn't going to differ on this, but I don't support abortion and there's room for me to reconsider because there are cases where I do support the option of abortion. This isn't one of them. If you can kill your child because he or she isn't perfect, then I honestly will respect you less. Adding to that, this scenario allows for giving a man every reason to believe that you won't abort his child over something superficial, giving him enough time to get attached to the existing baby that you got to the point where they noticed something in the tests or ultrasound that's not normal and figured out what the problem is. That usually happens in the second trimester, and in some cases, third trimester.

Again I want to thank everyone who answered (and I'm glad to see a few pro-lifers in the mix).

In response to the first scenario, the woman is in NO way justified to kill her unborn child because of a physical defect. I find the concept appalling and I have to say I would despise such a woman. Given that I cannot and will not support the abortion of a flawed child, how can I possibly support the abortion of a perfectly normal one? For all those who claim "bodily integrity", you must understand that pregnancy simply does not fall under that category. Go read McFall vs. Shimp carefully. It refers ONLY to invasive medical procedures. Pregnancy is NOT and never will be an invasive medical procedure. It is a natural occurrence. Indeed, abortion comes closer to being verboten under M vs. S than pregnancy does.

In the second instance, I do feel that people should adopt children they feel comfortable with, but I think there are more people out there than you realize adopting children of other races. Has anyone ever heard of Helen Doss? She adopted 12 children, ten of them of mixed race. She would have been glad to adopt a black child, and tried to, but the biases of the time got in her way.

I don't know how I would feel if some I considered a friend told me they were aborting for such a reason. I'm sure I wouldn't consider them the same way if they went through with it. And, if it were someone I knew, I'd probably try to talk them out of it, because I'm sure they would only be over-reacting to unexpected news, and they would love their baby when it was born.

However, I really do believe that women should be allowed to make the choice to keep or abort a non-viable pregnancy for themselves. So, even though I would never ever do something like that, I can't really call it "justified" or "unjustified". If I knew this woman, I'd probably help her husband try to change her mind on the matter, though.
Even though this is your thread, this part of your post is still a bit offtopic. If you want to debate this, you could post in another thread where it is on topic, like this one! *grin*
Just because the topics of this thread are so interesting, so I think it would be better to go into this elsewhere! Thanks!