who supports right to choose

[green 6]

I am pro-choice and yet I am one of those who feels uneasy around late late choice abortions. The reason for this? Well, temperamentally speaking, I am a pretty organized woman and I believe that folks should be able to get their act together before then. There is not such thing as being a little bit pregnant, you know.

I do know of a pregnant woman who was led on by her doctor who kept promising her an abortion but didn't come across with the goods. Fortunately for her, however, she figured it out that she was going to get one from that doctor before a late term abortion was required but you take a young and dim and stressed out woman who isn't able to think right due to panic and you have a real mess on your hands.

[pattygreen 5]

You are right about my neice. I'm not sure if she cried or not. Maybe she cries about it now, I don't know. I would like to think that she has some remorse. Without it, she could never receive forgiveness from God.

Something else I'd like to say is there are so many people (including some on LBT) who comment on how selfish the octuplets mom was and who talk about how she should be 'hung' for what she did, etc. Yet people have no problem with abortion, which to me is far, far, far worse than anything she has done. ( I believe life begins at conception)

[gadgetlady 4]

Up until the point that the fetus is viable (I believe that is around 26-28 weeks).

Viability varies depending on current medical technology. The problem with saying abortion should be legal until viability is that you are defining someone as a human being based on the advances of medicine. Human beings are human beings regardless of what the technology around them is doing. 100 years ago, a baby wasn't viable until much later than he or she would be viable now. So if, for example, a baby weren't considered viable in the 1950s until 30 weeks, but in 2008 a baby is viable at 19 weeks, the difference is only in the medicine, not in the baby. You are lethally discriminating against the 1950s baby based not on the baby's humanity, but on technology.

It might interest you to know (and I have said this before in this thread) that doctors are working on an artificial placenta. How will that affect viability outside the womb? How would it affect your position about when abortions should be allowed?

[rodriguezequal 3]

You are right about my neice. I'm not sure if she cried or not. Maybe she cries about it now, I don't know. I would like to think that she has some remorse. Without it, she could never receive forgiveness from God.

Something else I'd like to say is there are so many people (including some on LBT) who comment on how selfish the octuplets mom was and who talk about how she should be 'hung' for what she did, etc. Yet people have no problem with abortion, which to me is far, far, far worse than anything she has done. ( I believe life begins at conception)

I think her and her doctor were irresponsible in all of this! The doctor implanted 6 embryos when they should have only implanted 2-3! She shouldn't hang for what she did, but she should lose her works comp and her assitsance...she did this to herself and she should not, now, be begging for help from people...she made her bed and now she should lay in it...alone!

[rodriguezequal 3]

I'm not talking about viability based on medicine, I'm talking about viability based on the fetus, if it was born at home with no complications would it survive. Are you saying that I believe in abortion I have to believe in it all the way to 9 months? Personally I wouldn't have an abortion past 16-18 weeks. But if I were to have an abortion again I would do it as soon as I found out I was pregnant, although I would only do it again if I was in the same position. I mean yeah at 23 weeks a baby can possibly survive if we breath for it and hook it to everything we've got, but that doesn't mean it's viable at birth.

[gadgetlady 4]

I just want to say something about this. When I had my son and the doctors told me that he was dying and had an hour left to live...I felt nothing. When they took me in to see his body as they worked on him, fighting to save his life. I still felt nothing. They first time I got to hold my son (3 days after he was born)...I felt something. Your body and you mind have a way of protecting your heart/you emotions. Just because you never saw her cry doesn't mean she didn't. Some people feel they have to be strong in front of others, some feel that when someone else is crying they have to be strong and comfort them...a lot of people would rather cry in private, where they don't have to worry about people trying to comfort them and saying that it will be alright because you don't know if it will be alright...sometimes you just need to go in a room alone and cry...really cry!

Just a comment on this -- yes, our bodies and our minds do protect us against things like this. That, I feel, is something that the abortion industry preys upon. They routinely call the unborn baby a "product of conception", a "blob of cells", and the like. This is deliberate, to focus the mother's attention away from the baby. It's why the abortion industry routinely fights laws that require mothers to see ultrasounds before they abort, or laws that require full disclosure of fetal development.

That being said, pattygreen, very often mothers who have had abortions suffer in silence. Be sure to give your niece a lot of unconditional love. She may really be struggling and afraid to talk to you about it because she knows you didn't want her to abort. She needs healing.

[gadgetlady 4]

I'm not talking about viability based on medicine, I'm talking about viability based on the fetus, if it was born at home with no complications would it survive.

So is a full-term baby with complications then not viable? And is a pre-term baby who isn't viable not deserving of protection of the law?

Are you saying that I believe in abortion I have to believe in it all the way to 9 months?

LOL! No, you obviously can and will believe what you want. I just see a logical inconsistency in the belief that abortion should be legal but limited. Everyone who believes they should be limited says something like, "It's a woman's body and she should have the right to decide" (leaving out the second body involved), but then something like, "But I think women shouldn't have them after xxx weeks." I even hear, "Abortion should be legal but women shouldn't have them just for the sake of convenience", or "If a girl/woman waits until the third trimester, it's her own fault and she shouldn't be allowed to abort."

Here's the problem. Either the thing growing in the womb is a human being or it's not. If it isn't, yours and my and everyone else's arbitrary decisions about when abortion should be allowed are ridiculous. If it's not a human being, abortion should be legal for any reason, regardless of how arbitrary, and at any time during pregnancy. If the thing growing in the womb is a human being, however, then taking the life of that human being should only be considered when the baby's life causes the mother's life to be physically threatened (taking one life to save another).

You can't count backwards from birth and pinpoint a time at which the baby goes from being a human being to being something other than a human being -- except conception. Life is a continuum from conception to natural death. The right to life isn't something we earn; it is part of our humanity, and to deny it to one class of people because of their age or where they live is the worst social justice imaginable.

[rodriguezequal 3]

I just don't believe in late term abortions. I'm not saying the fetus (not baby, yet) is not a human. I'm sorry, but I don't think that abortion should be only if the mother will die. There are other reasons/needs to have an abortion. I think abortion should be legal until about 18 weeks. I don't think abortions should be allowed during the third trimester. I would not have an abortion because a baby would be inconvenient or because of a mistake I made. I know there are women that do, but not all women that have an abortion do it because they just don't want a baby...sometimes it's because they were forced into pregnancy/conception...maybe they used protection, but it failed...not all abortions are used as an oops...

[gadgetlady 4]

I just don't believe in late term abortions. I'm not saying the fetus (not baby, yet) is not a human.

By what criteria or criterion do you determine when this fetus, who you have categorized as a human being, is deserving of the same protection of the law as the rest of us, the protection of not having his or her life ended arbitrarily by the decision of another person?

By the way, fetus is just another name for unborn baby. It's a Latin term and there are various translations, among them "little one" and "offspring". Just as we have names for other stages of development - "newborn", "toddler", "adolescent", "tween", "elderly", etc. - they are all still human.

[rodriguezequal 3]

...Okay...

[Carrie_C 9]

Not everyone that has had an abortion feels bad about it later. A lot of women feel relieved. When I was younger, I got pregnant. I had an on again, off again boyfriend of about 5 years. It seemed the only time we got together was to party. I was living alone. I have to admit that I wasn't always diligent about birth control. My boyfriend at the time didn't see me as anything other than someone to party with and someone to have sex with. When I found out I was pregnant, I went to his house and told him. I wasn't expecting him to marry me or anything, but I expected a lot more from him than I got. When I told him, he just acted like it was my problem. The only time I saw him after that was about 2 weeks later when I went to ask him for money for an abortion. He would only give me half. I was young. I was living alone, barely paying my rent. I had no support from any of my family and none from my parents at all. I couldn't afford a child. I wouldn't have even been able to afford the time off work to have the baby. So I scheduled an abortion. But as fate would have it, the night before I was going to have the abortion, I miscarried. I felt no remorse, no saddness. What I felt was extreme relief. I still feel that way.

That being said, I was only about 8 weeks along. I would not have had one any later than that. I agree with green, if it's going to be done, it needs to be early.

[rodriguezequal 3]

The problem with that is most pregnancy tests don't say you're pregnant until you are about 4-6 weeks along and a lot of women don't find out until they're 8-10 weeks along...If a women found out at 8 weeks that she was pregnant, would you rather her have th abortion done right away or give it a few days or even a week to make sure that she's making the right choice?

[Carrie_C 9]

The problem with that is most pregnancy tests don't say you're pregnant until you are about 4-6 weeks along and a lot of women don't find out until they're 8-10 weeks along...If a women found out at 8 weeks that she was pregnant, would you rather her have th abortion done right away or give it a few days or even a week to make sure that she's making the right choice?

Were you talking to me or gadget?

[rodriguezequal 3]

It was just a question thrown out there for whoever wanted to answer it...Just to whoever was listening :rose:

[Carrie_C 9]

Ok! I think it should be legal up until about 12 weeks. I think a woman should know by then what she wants to do.