who supports right to choose

[396power 2]

If men could get pregnant there would be a 110% effective form of birth control. Maybe there should be a poll out there on how many men have had to make the sole choice to carry an unwanted pregnancy or not.....:lalala:

I do practice birth control We have 2 kids that we thank the LORD for, but we did not want any more. So the pill was bad for my Wife, so I had a vascectomy.

[BJean 16]

396: So you've had a vasectomy... somehow that gives me a feeling of relief.

I wish there was some possible way that you could experience becoming impregnated without your consent, then carrying the totally unwanted baby until term, being an unwilling host to a creature growing inside you, making you ill and causing you to lose teeth and acquire hideous stretch marks (that your intimate partner finds disgusting) acquiring hemmoroids and vericose veins, having a pound of flabby stretched out flesh where your flat stomach used to be, going through the fear, uncertainly and physical pain of labor and delivery, having your vagina opening torn up past your anus, wind up with bladder and bowel problems from it, and then cope with having a little person expecting you to take care of their every need for much of the rest of your life. If there was some possible way that you could feel it, know it, experience every single moment and every single aspect of it and you still thought that someone else could make a better decision for you than you could make for yourself, then I'd be willing to take your opinion on this subject a little more seriously. But sorry, you just sound like a little guy who, for whatever reason, likes to think he can force his beliefs about a woman's right to choose on others. Bite me, dude.

Where's the nice, warm, runny Brie when you need it?

[tanderson 3]

owie....does anyone have a band-aid?

[lor 0]

I resent the hi jacking of the term "Pro-life" to mean that one is against a woman's right to choose. How about if you ask if we are pro-choice or anti-choice?

[spunkywoman 1]

369 power if more men had vasectomies we wouldn't need this dicussion. Men make women pregnant.........we don't do it to ourselves!

[gadgetlady 4]

I resent the hi jacking of the term "Pro-life" to mean that one is against a woman's right to choose. How about if you ask if we are pro-choice or anti-choice?

I resent the hijacking of the word choice. How about pro-abortion or anti-abortion? After all, "choice" is a very charged word -- you're not an American if you don't believe people should have a "choice" (of course, when that "choice" is the taking of a human life, is it really a "choice" we have the right to make?).

[susannah 2]

Hey, Look I probably personally wouldn't have an abortion, but I reserve my right to, and the right of other women to make that very personal and private choice.

396 ,Outside of your own relationship ,what other women/couples do is their business to be frank.

Susannah

[gadgetlady 4]

I wish there was some possible way that you could experience becoming impregnated without your consent, then carrying the totally unwanted baby until term, being an unwilling host to a creature growing inside you, making you ill and causing you to lose teeth and acquire hideous stretch marks (that your intimate partner finds disgusting) acquiring hemmoroids and vericose veins, having a pound of flabby stretched out flesh where your flat stomach used to be, going through the fear, uncertainly and physical pain of labor and delivery, having your vagina opening torn up past your anus, wind up with bladder and bowel problems from it, and then cope with having a little person expecting you to take care of their every need for much of the rest of your life. If there was some possible way that you could feel it, know it, experience every single moment and every single aspect of it and you still thought that someone else could make a better decision for you than you could make for yourself, then I'd be willing to take your opinion on this subject a little more seriously. But sorry, you just sound like a little guy who, for whatever reason, likes to think he can force his beliefs about a woman's right to choose on others. Bite me, dude.

Are you a mother, BJean? I can't remember.

[gadgetlady 4]

You seem to have the point of view that any person who is reluctant to have an abortion, or who considers it something to be avoided, is automatically a person who agrees that abortion is "baby killing." But that is not the case.

Here's the issue at hand. In surveys of the American public, when the question "Do you believe abortion takes the life of a human being" (or similar wording) is asked, the results are usually between 70% and 80% that it does. Then, in the follow up question "Do you believe women should have the right to choose abortion?" (or similar wording), the results usually come in around 50%.

So where's the disconnect? What's going on with the 20-30% of the public who believe abortion takes a human life AND simultaneously believe it should still be legal? How does a society come to the conclusion that the taking of an innocent human life is acceptable?

The reason I ask the question is to make people think. It is not uncommon for people to knee-jerk say "of course" to the question of "choice" -- because, as pointed out earlier, "choice" is an American virtue. However, minds can be changed when one begins to point out the dichotomy in the reasoning. Not all minds, but some.

That being said, I have never called women "baby-killers" or "murderers". I recognize that women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy are in a tremendously difficult and emotional situation and often make decisions out of desperation. I have friends who have had abortions and have cried on my shoulders for days, weeks, and years afterwards; I have never, ever called them murderers or baby-killers and I never would. I also have a friend who was pregnant in college and called me to drive her to the abortion clinic (!). The end result is she placed her baby for adoption. Both decisions are fraught with difficulty. I am not immune to the issues involved and I am not looking from atop an ivory tower handing down opinions.

The only real issue here is, who gets to make the decision of how it is handled. The woman, or the state.

When there is an innocent life involved and the decision is whether or not someone has the "right" to take that innocent life, I believe the state HAS to get involved.

The critical question here is "Is what the mother is carrying a human life?" If it is a human life, there is no reason whatsoever, except sacrificing that life to preserve the imminent health of the mother (e.g. if the mother would be physically endangered if she carried the baby to term), that the taking of that human life should be allowed. I am aware of all of the subtle nuances involved. And while I am not lacking in compassion for mothers in these circumstances, that's the only question that we should be asking. If what the mother is carrying isn't a human life, abortion should be legal for any reason whatsoever. If it is a human life, there's no excuse.

I just read a news story tonight about how unborn babies react to the mother's stress:

New research conducted by doctors in England shows that unborn children can face emotional stress during a pregnancy as the baby's mother faces stress herself. Pro-life advocates say the study has implications for abortion as society learns more about the amazing development of children before birth.The British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists released the results of the study on Thursday and says that unborn babies as early as 17 weeks into pregnancy suffer from stress. The stress results when hormones transferred from anxious mothers reach the baby through the placenta. Researchers measure the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone in 267 pregnant women and took blood tests and amniotic Fluid samples from the babies. The Fluid is a good indicator of what's happening because it's mostly produced by the baby during the pregnancy. The doctors found that when the cortisol levels rose in women a corresponding increase the in the levels in the amniotic fluid were found. The link grew stronger as the pregnancy advanced, the physicians said. (from Unborn Babies Face Emotional Stress During Pregnancy Research Shows)

How can we talk about an entity that has a beating heart, brain waves, a circulatory system, and reacts to stress as something other than a living being?

Most women don't understand or know what the development of the unborn baby is and at what stages. That knowledge alone changes minds. When the entity in the womb has details as minute as fingerprints by the 8th week, you have to start asking some hard questions.

My goal is not to harass, intimidate, condemn, or point fingers. My goal is to educate and to get people to think -- and to help, whenever possible.

[Alexandra 55]

In surveys of the American public, when the question "Do you believe abortion takes the life of a human being" (or similar wording) is asked, the results are usually between 70% and 80% that it does. Then, in the follow up question "Do you believe women should have the right to choose abortion?" (or similar wording), the results usually come in around 50%.

And if the question were "Does abortion end the development of a fetus into a baby and terminate a potential human life?" the results would be 100% that it does.

The critical question here is "Is what the mother is carrying a human life?" If it is a human life, there is no reason whatsoever, except sacrificing that life to preserve the imminent health of the mother (e.g. if the mother would be physically endangered if she carried the baby to term), that the taking of that human life should be allowed. I am aware of all of the subtle nuances involved. And while I am not lacking in compassion for mothers in these circumstances, that's the only question that we should be asking. If what the mother is carrying isn't a human life, abortion should be legal for any reason whatsoever. If it is a human life, there's no excuse.

That's only the case if one sees it in purely black and white terms, which MOST people do not. The simple fact of conception does not, in MOST people's estimation, create a fully formed human life. It creates the potential for such a life, and terminating it at an early stage of development is an acceptable act when the alternative is unacceptable to the mother. It's not an on-off switch to MOST people. That's why you see a disconnect, because you don't allow for a middle ground.

[babygrl1234 6]

Most women don't understand or know what the development of the unborn baby is and at what stages. That knowledge alone changes minds. When the entity in the womb has details as minute as fingerprints by the 8th week, you have to start asking some hard questions.

In oder to get an abortion in Michigan it is manadatory that you view a video/ slideshow about fetus developement to make sure you know the details of where you fetus is at developmentally. That information may change some minds but there are still a large number of people going through with it.

[BJean 16]

gadget - I'm just as uptight about the dichotomy of your stance on it being unacceptable for never taking a human life if it is a baby, versus always taking a human life if it is a convicted killer. A life is a life, as you so often put it. If you believe there is no middle ground about taking a life when there is an "innocent" human being's life at stake, then you shouldn't believe that there is no middle ground when there is a "guilty" human being's life at stake.

Of course I have children. How else would I know exactly how a pregnancy affects a woman? That's not something you can read about and fully appreciate or understand. And I take the responsibiilty extremely seriously. That's why I could never, in a million years, give a child up for adoption. That is unfair to the extreme as far as I'm concerned. All you have to do is watch Oprah, Springer or a few of the other talk shows, or know someone who is adopted very intimately, to realize how much pain adoptees can experience when they learn that their mother gave them up for adoption. And can you blame them?

Unlike your belief about abortion, however, I'm not saying that adoption should be illegal. But I don't think that a healthy woman should give a baby up for adoption. She's created this little human being and she should take the responsiblity for it. Same goes for the father. No matter who he is.

Adoption is not always a perfect answer to an unwanted pregnancy. It is fraught with emotional as well as, in some cases physical, unhealthy implications. To pass adoption off as the perfect answer to make abortion illegal, is wrong, wrong, wrong. That is my belief. I know you think it is incorrect and you probably think it is ignorant. Perhaps that is why you are so intent on "educating" the rest of us. But it is my belief and I am probably just as educated about the matter as you, and I am definitely just as firm in my belief as you.

Sandbagging women into going through with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is terrorism in some cases, as far as I'm concerned. Just as it would be to sandbag a woman into having an abortion if she's a poor, unmarried, irresponsible woman.

It's okay for you to try to make people "think" but you don't let it go at that. You paint all women who have had or who may someday want to have an abortion with the same brush (unless her life is threatened, I suppose.) It isn't that simple no matter how much you will it to be so. Abortion is complicated decision, it is not to be entered into lightly, just as adoption is complicated and should not be entered into lightly. But sometimes abortion IS the best answer, and sometimes adoption IS the best answer. My entire argument ends with the simple premise that it is not for YOU to decide what EVERY woman should do if she is faced with either of those circumstances.

[green 6]

396: So you've had a vasectomy... somehow that gives me a feeling of relief.

I wish there was some possible way that you could experience becoming impregnated without your consent, then carrying the totally unwanted baby until term, being an unwilling host to a creature growing inside you, making you ill and causing you to lose teeth and acquire hideous stretch marks (that your intimate partner finds disgusting) acquiring hemmoroids and vericose veins, having a pound of flabby stretched out flesh where your flat stomach used to be, going through the fear, uncertainly and physical pain of labor and delivery, having your vagina opening torn up past your anus, wind up with bladder and bowel problems from it, and then cope with having a little person expecting you to take care of their every need for much of the rest of your life. If there was some possible way that you could feel it, know it, experience every single moment and every single aspect of it and you still thought that someone else could make a better decision for you than you could make for yourself, then I'd be willing to take your opinion on this subject a little more seriously. But sorry, you just sound like a little guy who, for whatever reason, likes to think he can force his beliefs about a woman's right to choose on others. Bite me, dude.

Where's the nice, warm, runny Brie when you need it?

Oh, hip, hip, hooray! It's the abortion debate, again! And this time the debate has been opened up by that grate communicater, 369.:confused: Well, once again I will state that I was one of those who voted for choice or abortion or the right to kill or whatever....and that this is because I have had an abortion myself. The decision to abort was due to a failure in birth control and because I had no desire to go through what BJean so ably describes in the above quoted paragraph. :tired This is, of course, what happens to a woman's body during pregnancy and childbirth and she is able to bear this when she is anxious to become a mother or when she would prefer to follow through with her pregnancy and give the child to a good and loving home. Some of us are not interested in this and we also don't believe that this collection of admittedly living tissue has any more rights than we care to give it until it reaches the realm of being a preemie. (I am one of those who is extremely uneasy about late term abortions.)

[gadgetlady 4]

And if the question were "Does abortion end the development of a fetus into a baby and terminate a potential human life?" the results would be 100% that it does.

Logically, though, there is no such thing as a potential human life. Either it's life or it's not. You can't have a potential thought. Either you have a thought or you don't. The life has potential, but it is not a potential life. There is no such thing.

[marjon9 6]

Logically, though, there is no such thing as a potential human life. Either it's life or it's not. You can't have a potential thought. Either you have a thought or you don't. The life has potential, but it is not a potential life. There is no such thing.

It's interesting to me that your style of argument mostly involves assuming that you are right about the very issue that is in contention. For example, your basic argument against abortion goes as follows:

Abortion is taking a human life because abortion is taking a human life.

But that "because" just doesn't work. The question whether a fetus is a human life is exactly the issue in contention. You can't win your argument simply by "assuming" that you are right and then putting that assumption forward as your "proof" that you are right.

And you have done the same thing here. You argue that there is no such thing as a "potential human life, that there is either life or not." But, that is exactly the issue being debated. Not everyone agrees that a fetus is more than a potential human life. I think you need to do more than simply declare: "I'm right because . . . I'm right."

And I would point out that even so called pro-life people disagree on whether an embryo that has not yet attached is a "life." So which is it? Is such an embryo a "life" or a "potential life." I assume you will agree, there is room for debate on that point.

The so-called pro-choice people simply take the same discussion further. Many simply do not agree with you that a fetus at any stage is a "human life." Many believe it is not anything more than a "potential human life."

So, are you going to debate this issue? Or, are you simply going to argue, like usual, that "a fetus is a human life because a fetus is a human life."