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Some say abortion is not responsible. They say it is avoiding the consequences of your actions. I pointedly disagree.

Abortion is a way of accepting the consequences of my actions. It's more like buring my hand and remembering to turn off the stove than it is getting trapped in a burning building and burning a lot more of me, but it should not be regarded as a non-consequence. I don't see how anybody can regard having an abortion as "getting out of responsibility scot free."

I was failing high school my senior year. I dropped out instead of repeating a year. It was a very responsible desicion that I did not come to lightly, and I was still able to go to the college of my choice. I suppose I aborted my public education, but "quitting" was not the wrong desicion.

Just because it's the *relatively* easy way out doesn't make it a de facto act of irresponsiblility.

I guess the short answer to this is that I do not believe it is human... and
that "alive" is not a good enough protection to something that is essentially a parasite to me...That the trade off is not worth it for a "maybe, might be, will be someday"



That scenario wasn't really meant as a good analogy to abortion, only mentioned as a personal example of why "easier" does not necessarily equate "worse" or "irresponsible." I'm sure I can think of a better one, later.

I certainly don't think abortion is "dropping your responsiblitiy." In my mind, adoption fits that description to a much higher degree.

There is nothing to be responsible *to* in abortion. In adoption, you've created a whole world of responsibliity and obligation, and then walked away from it.


This is also a incorrect analogy. no luck for anyone in that area. ^_^

If I don't want to take care of my dog, it can be safely removed from my presence without killing it. If other people want that dog, then they can have it, I don't care. Abortion, at least to me, is not really about killing the fetus. As long as it get's out of me before wreaking havoc with my body and life, I don't care what you do with it. Unfortunately, it cannot be removed without being killed in the process.

Furthermore in that vein, getting a headach from a yipping pooch is on such a low level compared to pregnancy that alone kills the corallary.

Once again, because I don't see it as human, to me, the only thing I would have created would be a mess I need to remedy. We humans do habitually kill non-sentient creatures out of annoyance, or simply out of failing to account for thier prescence, habitually. We also kill them for meat. And while I probably won't eat my aborted fetus if I should ever have to get one, I consider the benefits to my life to be far more useful than the calories I'd get from killing an animal.

Quite true. However, Not to be smart, but it seems to be equally difficult from that perspective for me to counter your insitance that the fetus is a life of value, without proving or positing in some way that it is not such.

@_@ sorry if I'm approaching this incorrectly now, I'll be back tommorrow to see if I can't work something else out.

[Off-topic] As a not-so-orthodox Jewish person, I'd say if that happened you gonna be sufferin' enough regardless.

Pork tastes nasty anyhow. [/Off-topic]

Assumption. I see fetii as human, as they have human DNA. They clearly aren't rabbits or dandelions. I do not see them as so special that they have the right to take over another body unquestioned, which no other human has any right to do. There is no other time in human existance that a person can take over and take resources from another human body, and have people say that this is not only okay, but that stopping this is immoral and damning.



How many people on the other side have said, "You play, you pay", "You did the crime, you do the time" or any other little quaint statement that boils down to "You had sex, you got pregnant, now you can't stop being pregnant!" That is making resonsibility what someone else wants you to do. Sometimes--hell, many times--the choice that another perosn would have you make is not the most responsible choice to make for you, and yet I am told time and time again that I am irresponsible. Just because another person does not like the outcome does not make it irresponsible.

Yes, I have responsibility for that life, as I did the one time my pregnancy scare was not just a scare. I have the responsibility to give any offspring I have the best of myself, and to not deliver them into a world where no one but I will want them or care for them because of someone else's personal policies. Do you honestly think it would have been responsible for a 22 and an 18 year old who are all but legally married, one half just starting college and one half finishing, to have and attempt to care for an infant and later a child with no monetary resources other than meager college loans? The people who tell me I was wrong to even think of abortion, and that I was happy I spontaneously aborted, would have not lifted a hand to aid me. I am mostly black, my husband is half black, and my family is poor. I was raised on welfare back when there was no limit, and it was demoralizing and horrible. Nowadays, I would have five years and then be booted unceremoniously. Would anyone have stepped forward and covered all my bills--my college loans, my lost dorm fees, my medical care, my new rent, any of that? Would they be by my side when I gave birth and then had offspring to care for? Would they have been there for teething and late rent and to hand me money rathern than make me get on welfare? No. Giving birth then or even attempting to carry the pregnancy to its probable March end would have meant screwing over my last semester of college, my business and social obligations, and both sides of my family. At that time, there was nothing I could have done to continue that pregnancy and give that offspring a good life or even a marginally decent one. So before I got an induced abortion, the gods saw fit to give me a natural one. Do people honestly think that my giving birth then and getting on welfare--because the truth is, I will have to get on welfare if I have a child I cannot afford--is more responsible than abortion?



I do not find them stupid. My mother was not stupid when she had three girls. My best friend was not stupid when she carried my neice. My staff chair was not stupid when she had her now four month old daughter. They made their choice, and their choice was to birth. See that word? Choice. They chose to give birth, instead of being forced into it against their will, as many people would like to do to any pregnant woman simply because she is pregnant. For many, birth is the right choice. For many others, it is not. Why must everyone have to go down the same path regardless of circumstances? It is like assuming that everyone should be Catholic. That choice does not work for everyone, and it should not be made to because of other's beliefs.

A woman who willingly wants to be pregnant is a mother. A woman who is forced to be pregnant against her will and without her input is an incubator, and is being cast aside for the percieved rights of a fetus that may never be born alive. Two entities cannot occupy the same body without there being a loss of rights. A pregnant woman who wants to be pregnant has given up her right of bodily integrity to birth a wanted offspring. A woman who is unwillingly pregnant should not be made to give up her rights against her will to birth an unwanted offspring.



And once again you have made an assumption, that I hate pregnancy and that I see it as a burden across the board. I see pregnancy as a result of sex, just like finding a stray cat on your porch is a result of leaving food out for your dog. Sometimes it is wanted and the fetus/cat will be kept and cared for. Sometimes it is unwanted, and to expect a person to keep a fetus/cat they don't want because others believe they accepted that when they set out the food/had sex is to presume that pregnancy is noever, ever a terrifying thing.

Later on in my life, pregnancy will be wanted. I'm planning for two pregnancys/three children, depending on whether the twin phenomenon hits me and my manperson. Right now, when I have no job, my husband is in college, and we have to ask his mother for the money to cover our rent and bills because I have medical problems, pregnancy is unwanted. To assume that every pregnancy is wanted and should be accepted because it is the cultivation of human life, and to assume that an across the board answer can go for every pregnancy, is to assume a lot. Not every pregnancy is wanted. Not every offspring is wanted. And not every fetus gets to be born.

The other side says time and time again, "Ask a woman who has been struggling to get pregnant if that is a baby or a lump of cells." I counter with, "Ask a woman who will starve her four children should she birth a fifth if that is a clump of cells or a baby. Ask a woman pregnant by rape if that is a clump of cells or a baby. Ask a woman carrying a etopic pregnancy is that is a clump of cells or a pregnancy."

Physically doesn't mean s**t. I am physically ready to give a kidney to someone, but I'm not morally, mentally, or emotionally ready. Just because my body can do something doesn't mean my mind, my wallet, or my soul is ready, and to discount those all in the name of physicality is to dehumanize a woman.



You know what people do with gifts they don't want? They return them for cash, exchange them, or stuff them away somewhere where no one will find it. In extreme cases or my case, they destroy them. To make me take it agaisnt my entire being and then deal with it without any concern for me is not to give me a gift, but to give me an albatross around my neck. A gift forced out of someone or onto someone is no gift at all.

I do not see pregnancy as creating life. It continues life. Life is an ongoing process.

And yes, the whole point of punishment is that it is in the eyes of the one who is suffering. A fifty dollar fine is nothing to a man making thousands a week, but it's something to a person who doesn't know where their meal is coming from. My niece can sit in her chair casually and like it, but if I put her in the corner in that same chair for being bad it's a punishment. If I am pregnant, and do not want to be, having me continue the pregnancy is a punishment to me.



You may have wanted that. I do not, and would not give that to another child if I could in any way prevent it. I've lived thorugh shitty times, and I wouldn't put that on a single offspring of mine. I would rather kill than watch my child suffer.

Am I happy to be alive? It's debatable. I've yet to be dead, I can't compare.

As for making it through: I also made it through six months of being molested on a regular basis and it made me a stronger person. But I'll be goddess damned if I dare subject that onto anyone.



Adoption is a option--after pregnancy has occured. It does nothing for the woman who does not wish to continue pregnancy whatsoever. And adoption is for white women birthing white babies with no problems for white couples with the money to adopt. Go open a website on parents willing to adopt, or flip open an ad about adoption. Go ahead. I'll wait. Here, let's make it easy, and give you a link or four:

http://adoptionnetwork.com/
http://www.adopthelp.com/
http://www.courageouschoice.com/
http://www.americanadoptions.com/

All I did was plug adoption into Google. What do you see? That's right. White couples, white babies, white families. I saw one family that might have been Asian, and a few brown faces on http://www.adoptuskids.org, which is national. On every private site I saw more white than a blizzard in Denver. So what are people like me supposed to do? I am not going to birth a white baby. I am not going to birth a pretty white cherub with soft hair and light eyes. Anything that fights out from between my legs is going to be brown and nappy headed. Adoption is a business designed to place white babies with and as for the little brown ones and old ones and sick ones--well, we'll think about those later, if the white couple can't get the white babies first.

Have you seen foster care in America? Group homes. Piss poor education. Kicked out at 18 without any resources or anywhere to go. Molestation. Abuse. The Florida system lost a four year old girl for over year. It's easy as hell to say the foster system is there for a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant when you've never been in it, just like it's easy to say don't have sex when you've never ********. You want me to trust my offspring to a system that can't even keep track of the most vulnerable of humanity's people? I'd shoot my child in the head first, and I'm deadly serious. At least then I'd know where the hell they were and what they were doing.



And some times, it is. Just like sometimes it's the worse choice to donate 400 dollars to a church for a baptismal font when you don't have any idea how to pay the 300 dollar bill to keep your heat on and it's December.



Many pregnant women are only pregnant because other people told them to stay that way, or because they think they should suffer. That's toughing it out for the sake of appearance. I don't need the appearance of being noble by birthing. I base my nobility on more than my uterus. If I don't want to be pregnant, there is no logical reason why I have to stay that way. I am not embarrsed about my abortion.



I gave them a chance. They got it for up to 12 weeks, and the journey ends now, and I have that right even if I can't get one legally. Life in and of itself is not an unquestioned right, not even for humans. Humans aren't special. No one and no thing deserves life, especially not life that requires the use of another body and resources, just simply for existing and metabolizing.

It is not irresponsible to quit a life in progress--which is what a fetus is, since it's not dead. If you are defining life as "existance of memories and personality", well no one has a right to that at all because s**t can go wrong at any second and cause death. It is irresponsible to have a child I can't afford that I will have to take care of for 18 years (because trust me, no one else will do it for me) because others get upset at me aborting.



I'm pagan, I'm proud, and I'm not converting to a faith I don't beleive. So let's end religion right there.



I'm guessing you didn't hear the story of the Catholic pharmacist who yelled at and embarrased a woman attempting to obtain EC, who took away her prescription, who said in essence that she was a murdered for asking for EC, and who sent her out of the Walgreen's in tears. That woman later obtained an abortion. Way to cut those abortion numbers down. If she'd gotten her EC, she might have never gotten that abortion. But because a Catholic who can't separate her church from her counter got arrogant, she added one more to the numbers.



I never give up my rights unwillingly. I don't give up rights to my body for having sex anymore than I give up my rights to walk down the street safely for having a v****a, lose my right to not donate organs by running into a guy and rupturing his kidney, or lose my right to not be harrassed by cops for being black after dark in a white neighborhood. The fetus has no right to life simply by implanting in my body because of my willing activity. There is no other condition in human existance where a person is expected to give up the rights and resources of their body to another person against their will for the continuation of life. What's the difference between my kidney and my uterus?



And you took that as saying that I see pregnancy as an evil. Which I don't. So it was an assumption. You concluded:

Nethilia (sex:pregnancy::smoking:cancer)
cancer = always unwanted
therefore Nethilia (pregnancy = always unwanted).

Your leap. Not mine.



You didn't look very hard. You assumed that because I think some pregnancys are undesired that I think they all are, and used that to fuel your point. You might as well assume that because I'm pagan I dance naked in front of fires in the woods all the time and worship the Triple Goddess.



And I see nothing important about a human not existing. Your milage may vary. But the fact is that there is nothing important about one human not being born. A fetus had a chance at life with implantation. If you are saying that life is more than metabolism, then no one has a right to that because not every fetus makes it to term. Nothing in nature gives any creature a right to exist simply because it already does.



Real nice concern for me there. My convienience means nothing once I get up the duff. Nice to be seen as disposable.



That's your morality. In many people's morality, death isn't a big damn deal. I see nothing morally wrong with taking one's life, as long as it is your own, your sane and rational choice, and you don't kill others in the process. You live with your morality, but don't expect me to care about it. I don't care if anyone cares about mine until they attempt to impose something that is against my morality on me.


And that is why I'm pro-choice, not pro abortion. I leave the choice up to the woman to do what she wants, according to how she feels and what she wants to do. It's none of my business what she does because chances are I won't be affected at all, just like no one is affected by my choice to abort but me and anyone else I might tell. So let her choose, instead of telling her she has to take a path she might not want to soothe a person's morality.

Some people don't leave that exception for life threatening, and will say that the fetus's chance at birth outweighs the mother's current life and she should accept it as her time to die. Yes, even for etopic pregnancies, because those have been known to simply regress away. So it's not across the board anymore than the desire of pregnancy is.

White Elephant?

I think it is incorrect to say something is not punishment unless you take it upon yoursef to think of it so, that it is a gift which was not intended as punishement. That mentality wouldn't hold true for almost anything else.

Would it be a gift to fix a beef dish for a Hindi without intending to hurt them?

An intimate encounter when you want it can be a gift and a wonderful experience, but if someone takes it upon themselves to give you that encounter, believing it a gift, against your will, it's a big moral NO-NO, and illegal to boot.

When we say how onerous pregnancy is to the person who doen't want it, a lot of time the answer seem to be, "It's not so bad! look at Jane over there." But nobody would dare suggest that because sex isn't so bad, then sex without consent isn't so bad, either.