gadgetlady

Of course it's not perfect, but that doesn't mean we should deliberately do wrong things. I have always said, every pro-lifer I know has always said, and all pro-life laws drafted have said that there should be an exception in the case of the mother's physical life being in danger should she carry the baby to term. You do know that even according to Planned Parenthood's own statistics, the vast majority of abortions are performed for reasons other than the physical health of the mother or the baby? The fact is that 93% of abortions are performed for social reasons (quite simply, the baby is unplanned or inconvenient).

But when the baby is removed forcibly through abortion, his or her heart always stops and he or she always dies (except in the case of late-term abortions where one of the "complications" is that the baby is born alive). The goal should be for both to remain alive, don't you think?

Yes, of course, but not simultaneously, because they are separate heartbeats. If the baby is advanced enough, he or she can sometimes be saved via c-section if the mother dies.

The mother is not contributing to its beating, but simply providing an atmosphere for it to continue beating.

The government interferes with free will all the time: whenever the expression of one person's free will infringes on the rights of another. That's why things like spousal abuse and assault and rape and murder and theft are illegal. Again, it comes back to the question of whether the baby is owned by the mother or not, and whether she has the right to do whatever she wants to this other person. It has nothing to do with religion.

Babies aren't aborted at the point of conception. They're typically aborted at about 8 weeks. The mother finds out she's pregnant right around the time the baby's heart starts beating. I don't know of any blobs of tissue with an independently beating heart.

You are so wrong. Our concern is dramatically more than philosophical. Our concern is for both mother and baby.

gamyj, again, you don't know me. I have never judged or condemned anyone for having an abortion, in person or online. I believe the act of abortion is gravely wrong but I have the utmost understanding and compassion for mothers and the situations that drive them to abort.

Thanks, rodriguezequal, pattygreen, and luluc. I appreciate your kind words. It's not fun to be attacked -- as you all know!

Judgmental much? You don't know me and you're assuming an awful lot. I have a tremeendous amount of compasssion for mothers who are caught in an unplanned pregnancy. I just don't think the best answer for them is to kill their children. I'd wager a bet that there are some people on this board who disagree with me philosophically but would vouch for my compassion for both mother and child. As to only having compassion for "something that doesn't exist", if there's no baby there's nothing to abort.

Again, criminal. And scary. If all we have in the future is government hospitals, we're all in for it.

That isn't an analogy. It's a scare tactic. I clearly label my analogies as analogies, and my scenarios as hypotheticals.

I'm so sorry for what happened. And it makes me soooo mad. :wink: Poor medical care infuriates me. I can't tell you the number of stories I've heard of babies who weren't supposed to survive long after birth and actually thrived. And the number of mothers who were told to abort because their babies would be in horrible condition and they weren't. I grieve for those who suffer in every circumstance, but I believe God has a plan for everyone. It is never easy being a parent, regardless of the situation your child is in. One thing parenthood teaches you, sometimes kicking and screaming, is selflessness. Grace, mercy, and personal growth abound when we care for others.

The mother always has choices. Unfortunately for the unborn baby, someone else chooses for him/her. The point is that abortion should be illegal because it puts the life of one person at the whim of another. Someone choosing an illegal action when they had the option to not choose that illegal action is very different from imposing one's choice, to deadly effect, on another. No one is forcing a mother to have a legal or illegal abortion (generally -- although some mothers are forced into such things). But the unborn baby is being forced to die. Have you thought about adoption? Were you aware of your disorder prior to your son's birth? Or was it the complications from labor and delivery that brought it to their attentiion?

The unborn baby is a victim without a choice; someone else is making the decision to kill him or her without his or her consent. If the mother chooses an illegal abortion, she is making a choice of her own free will that might cause her to be a victim. Look, I know it can be absolutely dreadful to have an unplanned pregnancy. Unfortunately, in this lifetime we have to play the hand we're dealt. To brutally kill an unborn baby because you don't like the situation is as unacceptable a solution as it would be to kill a toddler because he or she had ADHD and was frustrating you. The only difference in the two children is age and development. BTW, I am sorry to hear that you won't be able to have as many children (biologically) as you would have liked to. :wink:

Yes, I have experienced some of those things. What I'm saying is it isn't the mother's life to decide that her baby should die. There are two lives at stake, not one. Some choices have victims.

Our lot in life is never guaranteed. We may have something happen to us that causes us misery for the rest of our lives. No one is guaranteed a perfect child or a perfect childhood, and while I'm not discounting at all the sacrifices you've made, I still do not think it is ever acceptable to kill another person because we think they'll be better off and/or because we don't want to deal with them. Also, you know very little about my life and my precious children, and you've assumed an awful lot about what I have and haven't experienced. I commend you for what you do for your child. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that with 20/20 hindsight you say now that you wouldn't have aborted had you known he would be disabled, but if the doctors suggested abortion and you were a pregnant, emotional, young mother, you very well might have aborted and missed out on the love you now have in your family. I could be totally wrong but many people are convinced to abort at the mere potential of disability. It's a scary thing to face when you have no knowledge of it.

Are you saying you would have aborted him had you known he would be disabled? It is not our place to determine when another person should live or die. I believe people have the right to commit suicide if they want to, but I don't believe in pre-emptively killing them because we think they might want to commit suicide later in life.

The difference is it is a killing in self-defense. And it's another rabbit trail. There are an incredibly small number of mothers who have a physical condition that would prevent them from surviving a pregnancy. There's a big difference with presuming someone's potential quality of life, their happiness, their satisfaction, etc. as a means to determine whether or not they deserve to live. To kill someone pre-emptively because we believe they may lead a life which isn't happy is the height of arrogance. Disabled people are often happy -- and fully-abled people are often not happy! Many years ago I was horrified by a study which was released. They surveyed college students at either UCLA or USC (can't remember which, but I think it was UCLA) and asked if a "fat gene" could be identified and pinpointed in an unborn baby, would they abort because they knew the baby would potentially be fat later in life. A majority (greater than 50%; I don't remember the exact number) said yes. Chilling.

I would not kill my child if he or she were deformed in utero, or deformed due to an accident as an infant, toddler, adolescent, or even an adult. I don't believe imperfect people have no value, and, quite frankly, I'm surprised that you would say this. Am I mistaken, or are you not the parent of a disabled child? Please forgive me if I'm wrong as I do get people on here mixed up a bit.

I don't believe we should kill people because we presume or anticipate that they won't want to be alive. It's not our decision to make. I also don't believe that we should kill disabled people because they cannot lead normal/happy lives.

The goal is to terminate the baby. If the goal were simply to not be pregnant anymore, you would be fine with the hypothetical situation I proposed earlier.

Perhaps "goal" is a better word.

My sense on the foster care system -- and I will readily admit I'm not an expert on the subject -- is that the babies that are "in the system" aren't available for adoption, but rather their parents aren't willing to give them up yet. Potential adoptive parents want a baby who is "free and clear" to be theirs; what they don't want is a legal hassle for several years, and that's the status of the babies in the system. I have several friends who have babies through foster care and, based on their experiences and what their case workers have told them about babies and general availability, this seems to be the case -- at least here in CA. One of my friends had to go through a nightmare legal situation to get adoptive custody of their daughter, and the other adopted a baby out of the system and was told by the social worker (they had to do a foster-care home study even though they didn't get the baby through foster care) that available newborns are snapped up immediately.

Carrie, the foster care system is overloaded not because of newborns in the system, but rather older kids. I am quite confident that there would be plenty of people to adopt and care for the unplanned babies. But the reason I posted the scenario wasn't to debate the particulars of a hypothetical, but to try to get to the heart of motive: is the desire of a pregnant mother seeking abortion to be "unpregnant" or is it her desire to kill the baby? And I think everyone who's tackled the issue has answered that it's her desire to kill the baby. It's very telling, really -- because the argument has thus far been that it's a woman's body and she has the right to do what she wants with her body. But now, when I propose the hypothetical that her body doesn't have to be involved at all, now all of a sudden the issue is really that she in effect owns the baby, and regardless of the fact that it's a life that can be preserved, she alone has the right to decide whether the baby should die or not.