who supports right to choose

[gadgetlady 4]

Gadget, for the moment can you stop evoking slaves and slavery into your postings...it is making me rather uncomfortable.

Both slavery and abortion should make people uncomfortable. They are both based on the same precept: that one person owns another and can do with them what they wish.

To your earlier comment that you don't believe that if abortions were illegal, women would still have them. Of course they would, remember when abortions were illegal before...many abortions were performed in folks kitchens. Or should we all become The Duggar family?!?

No, that's not what I said at all. I said the numbers would be cut down dramatically, not squelched entirely. Illegal activities will never stop, whether they be murder, thievery, or any form of human oppression.

And no, I don't believe everyone should have a voluminous number of children. I believe people should decide if they want to control their family sizes before they have already added to that family through the creation of a new human being.

[marjon9 6]

Gadget, for the moment can you stop evoking slaves and slavery into your postings...it is making me rather uncomfortable.quote]

I knew she wouldn't do it. Asking gadget to give up the slavery thing, even for a short time, is like asking "Head On" to stop saying "Apply Directly To The Forehead." Both are annoying, and neither will ever end.

[gadgetlady 4]

You're such a charmer, marjon.

[joe7777 1]

Wow, good thing that abortion is a women's health issue and not a religious or moral one. Would you like to know what happens in a country where they are illegal??

A 1996 study among 1,300 Egyptian women by the Cairo Demographic Centre found that one-third had attempted to terminate a pregnancy. Other studies suggest that about one-third of abortions are carried out without medical supervision, with women trying traditional remedies or overdoses of aspirin or quinine, at a risk to their own lives.

Journal Name: Reproductive Health Matters

Publication Year 2004, Journal Volume 12, Journal Issue 24, First Page 217, End Page 218

[SlimTarnishedDiva 1]

Both slavery and abortion should make people uncomfortable. They are both based on the same precept: that one person owns another and can do with them what they wish.

I try not to get personal when it comes to debating a womens right to choose what to do with her body, but in this case I have to. As a black woman I am kind of offended, and uncomfortable that you would compare the harsh, inhumane treatment of people who were stolen, then made to breed to fund, and build a country. These people weren't asked to be born so they can live such an unjust life. Women who decide to end a pregnancy for any reason are making sure said zygote will not have to suffer after it is born. If the Government truly believed that zygotes/embryos/fetus' were "LIVING" beings in the womb(and they TRULY wanted to END ABORTION as we know it) there would legitimate government organizations that help women seek an alternatives to abortion, and not the religious zealots standing outside abortion clinics, or planned parent hood.

No, that's not what I said at all. I said the numbers would be cut down dramatically, not squelched entirely. Illegal activities will never stop, whether they be murder, thievery, or any form of human oppression.

And no, I don't believe everyone should have a voluminous number of children. I believe people should decide if they want to control their family sizes before they have already added to that family through the creation of a new human being.

You want a simple end to a hard decision, without offering a solution. Let's keep this very simple.. abortion isn't and easy way out, but it's not murder, nor is it a crime according to Federal Law. You and others would like for it to be considered that, but it just isn't so. Why deny a woman her Constitutional Rights to ease your personal feelings and vendetta. Also, slavery was condoned because the Bible said it was ok and just to own slaves....The same Bible is used today to justify injustices towards the LGBT community, which is wrong on so many levels...So according to how Christian Radicals pick and choose whats wrong, and what is right...."The Bible" there is no mention in it against abortion. Also, you can't use the whole "THOU SHALL NOT KILL" theory, because the same folks who are against Abortion, believe in the Death Penalty!! But, I guess you will repeat the old adage an "EYE FOR AN EYE" theory, but hey no one is perfect. Here's an idea...let's kill the man who rapes a woman, then force said woman to have the rapist baby so she can give another woman who can't have kids a chance to be a mother....

If this happens, then someone will be right at least a few times a day...like a broken clock, huh?

[gadgetlady 4]

If the Government truly believed that zygotes/embryos/fetus' were "LIVING" beings in the womb(and they TRULY wanted to END ABORTION as we know it) there would legitimate government organizations that help women seek an alternatives to abortion, and not the religious zealots standing outside abortion clinics, or planned parent hood.

The presence (or absence) of government organizations does not make something right or wrong. You should know that precisely from the lesson that slavery taught us: sometimes the government has unjust laws.

Let's keep this very simple.. abortion isn't and easy way out, but it's not murder, nor is it a crime according to Federal Law. You and others would like for it to be considered that, but it just isn't so. Why deny a woman her Constitutional Rights to ease your personal feelings and vendetta.

What the heck are you talking about? I don't have a "vendetta", I have compassion -- for both the baby and the mother. And show me where abortion is in the constitution, please.

Also, slavery was condoned because the Bible said it was ok and just to own slaves....The same Bible is used today to justify injustices towards the LGBT community, which is wrong on so many levels...So according to how Christian Radicals pick and choose whats wrong, and what is right...."The Bible" there is no mention in it against abortion. Also, you can't use the whole "THOU SHALL NOT KILL" theory, because the same folks who are against Abortion, believe in the Death Penalty!! But, I guess you will repeat the old adage an "EYE FOR AN EYE" theory, but hey no one is perfect.

You are putting words in my mouth. I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't believe in discrimination. And the Bible doesn't say it's ok and just to own slaves. I'm not repeating any old adages to you. And as I've said before, I don't think abortion is a religious issue.

As I've said before, unplanned pregnancies are painful and difficult and scary for the mothers involved. I know that and I understand that. I have very, very close friends who have been there. I've also seen what happens when scared mothers are offered a "choice" that seems like it will solve all of their problems, and all that "choice" does is compound the problem because they feel like they can never forgive themselves. Or perhaps they're left infertile due to the procedure and when they want to plan a pregnancy, can't get pregnant -- leaving them with the knowledge that they aborted the only child they ever had.

I spent about an hour on the phone tonight with a friend who just suffered a miscarriage. She was 3 months along. She said she didn't understand how women could choose, through abortion, what she had just gone through; I told her they were convinced, or convinced themselves, that it wasn't a baby. She was livid -- she said, "I SAW my baby. I saw his head, his hands, his heartbeat! How could anyone say that wasn't a human life?" It always amazes me how we honor the development of the unborn when the baby is wanted -- with little ticker factory tickers in signatures showing what's going on with the baby this week, with photos in books and on calendars telling about how this week the eyelashes are being formed, or that week the baby is sucking his thumb -- but when it's an unplanned pregnancy, the baby is just a "blob of tissue" or a "product of conception". Don't you see the irony in that?

Do you have any idea how abortions are performed? That in a suction aspiration or D&C abortion (the most common types), the baby is pulled apart limb from limb? That often the abortionist will look in the little bag that holds the contents of the womb to check and make sure there are 2 arms, 2 legs, a torso, and a head -- so he doesn't leave anything behind?

Now everyone's going to jump up and down and say I'm being gruesome. Well it's not me. It's the procedure. No one complains when someone describes the banding process -- it's a medical procedure. What makes abortion gruesome is the thing that's happening. You can try to make it pretty by talking about women's rights and the women having control of their bodies and their destiny, but you will always fail. It is an ugly, ugly thing. That's why those in favor of abortion are practically rabid when they see pro-lifers pictures of aborted babies. All those pictures show is reality. Go ahead and attack me for daring to bring up all of this ugliness. All I'm doing is describing the very practice you're defending.

[SlimTarnishedDiva 1]

The presence (or absence) of government organizations does not make something right or wrong. You should know that precisely from the lesson that slavery taught us: sometimes the government has unjust laws.

Yes, it does..who is going to take care of these unwanted kids these mothers will be forced to bear if abortions were made illegal!?! Slavery taught me that sometimes very bad things happen to good people. That lazy people will break the backs of others to get rich, that later in life there will be people who use what these poor people went to, to justify their own causes.

What the heck are you talking about? I don't have a "vendetta", I have compassion -- for both the baby and the mother. And show me where abortion is in the constitution, please.

The Constitution gives us rights to do what we please with our own bodies, the Government, and radical Christians are trying to legislate that away! Now, who took who words out of context there!

You are putting words in my mouth. I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't believe in discrimination. And the Bible doesn't say it's ok and just to own slaves. I'm not repeating any old adages to you. And as I've said before, I don't think abortion is a religious issue.

Actually, I laid out how I SAW most of the Fundamental Pro-lifers as a whole. I think it's in Dueteromeny(ms) where it say you have a right to own slaves, and not owning them was an abomination against God.

As I've said before, unplanned pregnancies are painful and difficult and scary for the mothers involved. I know that and I understand that. I have very, very close friends who have been there. I've also seen what happens when scared mothers are offered a "choice" that seems like it will solve all of their problems, and all that "choice" does is compound the problem because they feel like they can never forgive themselves. Or perhaps they're left infertile due to the procedure and when they want to plan a pregnancy, can't get pregnant -- leaving them with the knowledge that they aborted the only child they ever had.

Have you walked a mile in their shoes? Do you know what state of mind majority of them are in? I can tell you for a fact that they are given more than abortion as an option. Please don't read and repeat to me what a pro-lifer's booklet says. I went with a few friends over the years, some were of choice, some were medically necessary. I know what happens, what information is given, and also what counseling is offered to both the women of choice, and the women who needs this medically, I can tell you that it's all the same. I have held hands, I have cried, and I have seen deals made at the last minute. I would also like to say if our government offered prevention classes, instead of abstinence classes a lot of cases wouldn't have happened with a little BIRTH CONTROL! Abortions are very high in read states with abstinence classes.

I spent about an hour on the phone tonight with a friend who just suffered a miscarriage. She was 3 months along. She said she didn't understand how women could choose, through abortion, what she had just gone through; I told her they were convinced, or convinced themselves, that it wasn't a baby. She was livid -- she said, "I SAW my baby. I saw his head, his hands, his heartbeat! How could anyone say that wasn't a human life?" It always amazes me how we honor the development of the unborn when the baby is wanted -- with little ticker factory tickers in signatures showing what's going on with the baby this week, with photos in books and on calendars telling about how this week the eyelashes are being formed, or that week the baby is sucking his thumb -- but when it's an unplanned pregnancy, the baby is just a "blob of tissue" or a "product of conception". Don't you see the irony in that?

I am very sorry for your friend, but she has had too much of a tremendous and tragic event occur to her, for her to give a non-bias, and unemotional opinion on whether or not abortions should or shouldn't be legal. No one here is saying abortion is right in any way, shape, form, or fashion..what we are saying is it is not yours, nor the Governments right to tell a woman what she should do with her body. Do you know most women who have abortions, don't have an emotional attachment with the zygote/embryo/fetus that is growing within them. I have had women in my life who've had miscarriages it isn't pleasant at all(trust me it hits very close to home) but they still will never deny another woman her right to have an abortion. Neither would I!!

Do you have any idea how abortions are performed? That in a suction aspiration or D&C abortion (the most common types), the baby is pulled apart limb from limb? That often the abortionist will look in the little bag that holds the contents of the womb to check and make sure there are 2 arms, 2 legs, a torso, and a head -- so he doesn't leave anything behind?

Now everyone's going to jump up and down and say I'm being gruesome. Well it's not me. It's the procedure. No one complains when someone describes the banding process -- it's a medical procedure. What makes abortion gruesome is the thing that's happening. You can try to make it pretty by talking about women's rights and the women having control of their bodies and their destiny, but you will always fail. It is an ugly, ugly thing. That's why those in favor of abortion are practically rabid when they see pro-lifers pictures of aborted babies. All those pictures show is reality. Go ahead and attack me for daring to bring up all of this ugliness. All I'm doing is describing the very practice you're defending.

Again let's keep this real as possible... Most who defend a womans right to choose know what an abortion is for(who said it was pretty), you posting what is done in "SOME ABORTIONS" in detail isn't a shock and horror experience for me at all. What is a shock and horror for me is when I read about women killing their LIVING, BREATHING, KIDS(IE..ANDREA YATES, SUSANNE SMITH, the lady who just killed her 5 month old baby)

BTW, you didn't respond about the rape victim being forced to carry her rapist child to term in order to give some woman a chance at mother hood. I don't think you will.

See, I don't think you get it. What happens to these kids who are born to people who don't want them, no means to take care of them, or even yet an addicted parent. Who is going to take care of them. Trust me nobody wants a heroine addicted baby. Until we can answer the who, and the how we can't begin to take away someone's right to have an abortion. There are a lot of babies who are growing up in foster care that have birth defects, addicted to drugs, and or alcohol, that nobody wants. They want healthy cute babies. For there to be a end, there has to be a means to it. You can't just say "MAKE ABORTIONS ILLEGAL" without finding a solution to the problem, before it happens. You have to teach prevention, not just abstinence. RU40 needs to be readily available, I think Catholic hospitals just started offering them to rape victims, ONLY?!? With all that said you still can't legislate what a woman does with her body. Look at it this way. How would you like if they want to legislate what you ate, what you read, what you bought for your household? What about who you married, if you can smoke? What if they wanted to put birth control in the Water in inner city neighborhoods so poor people couldn't have kids? Abortion is a personal issue, it's between the person who is having it, her Doctor, and her God. Not you, not me, not the Governments. I have no doubt of a baby's developments in the womb, and how an abortion is performed, but if the woman who is carrying it can't because of emotional, physical, or financial reason...who are we to say SHE HAS TO!!

[BJean 16]

SSDiva: I am so impressed with your ability to express your thoughts and feelings.

Some people thought that "The Passion of the Christ" was a wonderful, marvelous, fantastic movie. I believe it exploited the story of Jesus for profit and to try to shame people into feeling badly about how He was treated. The guy (Mel Gibson, an alcoholic - probably with horrible guilt and demons of his own) who made the movie, must feel really good about all the graphic flying flesh and blood that he blew up for the big screen. It was one of the most gory, graphic movies that I've ever seen. It made me want to vomit. I didn't feel guilty, I felt disgust toward the person responsible for such an exploitative vehicle.

I also want to vomit when some people try to pull the same profitable stunt by carying placards with bloody photos of dead fetuses outside abortion clinics. They are hoping to guilt women into bearing children that they are unable to love, nurture and take care of. In fact, many of those anti-choice, anti-abortion, anti-compassionate people will use any means to try to convince people that abortion is a hideous, horrific, bloody, painful, regretful, murderous act. They want to believe that each and every woman who chooses abortion will be plagued for life with visions of death and blood and gore over that choice. What balderdash!

They believe the ends justify the means, so it's okay for them to use ridiculous "parallels" equating slavery to abortion, or any other thing they can so that they may be able to shock people into believing that abortion is the murder of a living, breathing, viable human being, and not a relatively simple medical procedure that should be made available as a choice.

Listen, science is science, and nature being what it is, women must absolutely MUST have it in their power to terminate a pregnancy that threatens their lives. I find it one of the most ironic things in the world that anti-choice people don't care one whit about a woman whose birth control has failed, or who has been raped, or who is simply not able to healthily carry a child to term - for any reason. They care about the baby because the baby has no voice of his own.

Uh right, sure. Well what they don't get and never will get is that they have no right, NONE, to interject their wishes upon that baby or that mother. The only person with that right is the mother. That is because without the mother the child doesn't exist. The child is dependent upon the mother-host for it to have any chance for survival. Interjecting themselves between a mother and a fertilized egg while it is in the mother's uterus, is ludicrous. We have had that kind of law in place before and the result was horrific.

Like I said, this thing may not go quietly away with a change in the Oval Office, but believe me, many, many of us will never put up with the government interjecting itself into women's uteruses again.

By the way, you made an excellent point about legislating bodily functions. What if we passed a law that said that the government gets to decide when and if a woman can have a baby? What if we were so overrun with children that it threatened our planet? What if women were compelled BY LAW to HAVE abortions? Well, if you can force a woman to have a baby, it isn't too much of a stretch to say that we can force a woman NOT to have a baby, given the right circumstances. Neither scenario would be right or good. We just won't stand for it. Nor should we.

Thank you for your passionate and thoughtful post, SSDiva. We must stay united to ensure that women never become just a commodity in this country.

[kagoscuba 0]

Anytime someone tries to bring the abortion issue down to a Biblical argument, it immediately loses its value, Why? Well, for example in Leviticus the Bible says not to eat catfish, as that is a sin...well just about every Southern church would be having at least one day of sin per summer. Masturbation is also forbidden...I think just for men though (seed cannot touch the ground). I wonder how many men screaming for an end to abortion have a stack of Playboys at home they get their rocks off to? Oh, and do I really have to go into how the Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus died, vetted at the council of Nicene (that's where the Apostle's Creed comes from by the way), had a few chapters thrown out of it, translated, then given out? Nice book...lots of righteous stuff in it, but the infallible word of God? Please. The modern translation doesn't even get one of the Ten Commandments right...Thou Shalt Not Kill is actually Thou Shalt Not Murder in the original Hebrew. There is not too subtle difference in those two meanings. To me a life is a life when it can be sustained by itself or medical personnel. I think the earliest I've heard of is 26 weeks. However, I would not be opposed to abortion being limited to the first 8 weeks. Definitely a tough moral decision, but not one to be debated religiously.

[green 6]

I thought you didn't believe in hell

I do have a serious question, though, green. If abortion had been illegal in France when you found yourself facing an unplanned pregnancy, what would you have done?

At the time that I discovered that I was pregnant I figured I would have to fly back to Canada in order to arrange for an abortion. Then I discovered that I could arrange for one locally and with less fuss. At that time one could have an abortion upon request in France whereas in Ontario I would have needed, I believe, 3 doctors to agree on my psychological unfitness to continue on with the pregnancy. This would have been easy enough to arrange. Doctors like me and I have had problems with depression since I was a teenager.

[green 6]

If necessary I would have had an illegal abortion.

[green 6]

As Mel Gibson, well, he is a disgusting anti-semite!

[gadgetlady 4]

who is going to take care of these unwanted kids these mothers will be forced to bear if abortions were made illegal!?!

There is actually a shortage of newborns available for adoption, so this is a non-issue. Why do you think people are going abroad to adopt babies? Even if it were an issue, however, killing people is not the solution to social problems. If it was, we'd be "euthanizing" homeless and poor people every day.

I think it's in Dueteromeny(ms) where it say you have a right to own slaves, and not owning them was an abomination against God.

Slavery in the Bible is not comparable to slavery as we think of it in America. It was not based on heritage or nationality or color; very often, people sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts. Their "term" of slavery was for a time, not for life. People chose to be slaves so that they would be taken care of. You have to look at it in the historical context of the time to understand it. The Bible does not condone racism, race-based slavery, or any of the horrible atrocities that we commonly associate with modern slavery.

Have you walked a mile in their shoes? Do you know what state of mind majority of them are in?

Yes, I have. I've been involved with women in crisis pregnancies for over 20 years. I've talked to them, counseled them, loved them, cried with them, given them options, and helped them through post-abortive pain when they've choosen to abort. I've offered on many occasions to adopt their babies. Don't assume that I only have book knowledge on this subject.

I am very sorry for your friend, but she has had too much of a tremendous and tragic event occur to her, for her to give a non-bias, and unemotional opinion on whether or not abortions should or shouldn't be legal.

The point I was trying to make was not that she had a unique perspective on abortion, but rather that we have disregarded the facts about the development of the unborn in the whole abortion discussion. No one speaks to a pregnant mother about "products of conception" or "a blob of tissue" unless she is planning to abort. If she is carrying the baby to term, all of a sudden it's a baby, with body parts and everything. But otherwise, the baby is just a piece of trash.

No one here is saying abortion is right in any way, shape, form, or fashion

Why is abortion not right?

what we are saying is it is not yours, nor the Governments right to tell a woman what she should do with her body.

The baby is not her body.

Do you know most women who have abortions, don't have an emotional attachment with the zygote/embryo/fetus that is growing within them.

Ya think? It's awfully easy to advocate or participate in the destruction of human life when you don't have an emotional attachment. That's what happened in Hitler's Germany -- how else could they have carried out all of those horrendous exterminations? They didn't identify the victims as human, and they didn't form emotional attachments to them.

Most who defend a womans right to choose know what an abortion is for(who said it was pretty), you posting what is done in "SOME ABORTIONS" in detail isn't a shock and horror experience for me at all.

That's really sad. Dismembering people and identifying their body parts isn't shocking? And those are early-term abortions!!! What about prostaglandin or saline abortions, or partial-birth abortions, where the often viable baby is delivered, feet-first, and then stabbed at the base of the skull and the brains suctioned out? Does that not bother you either?

What is a shock and horror for me is when I read about women killing their LIVING, BREATHING, KIDS(IE..ANDREA YATES, SUSANNE SMITH, the lady who just killed her 5 month old baby)

Those are equally horrible. I believe that the prevalence and acceptance of abortion leads to more cases of child abuse. Those in favor of abortion claim that if abortion is illegal, more unwanted babies will be born and abused. But if abortion is the cure for child abuse, why is there still child abuse -- and, in fact, why is it on the rise?

BTW, you didn't respond about the rape victim being forced to carry her rapist child to term in order to give some woman a chance at mother hood. I don't think you will.

I have answered this previously but I will again lest you think I am avoiding it. Killing the baby who is the product of a crime is inflicting the death penalty on someone other than the criminal. Very often, women who have been raped and carry their babies to term report that this is the only positive thing that came out of the rape. I have a tremendous amount of compassion for women who are the victims of rape; I don't want them victimized again.

See, I don't think you get it. What happens to these kids who are born to people who don't want them, no means to take care of them, or even yet an addicted parent. Who is going to take care of them. Trust me nobody wants a heroine addicted baby.

I have a very good friend who has been a foster parent to a crack baby for the past 8 months. She is the sweetest thing in the world. She certainly doesn't deserve to be put down like an animal. There are people to take care of these babies.

You have to teach prevention, not just abstinence.

I am a big believer in prevention.

With all that said you still can't legislate what a woman does with her body.

The baby is not her body. If it were, women would have the unique ability to have 4 arms, 4 legs, 2 brains, 2 hearts, and in about 50% of the cases, male genitalia.

[gadgetlady 4]

I also want to vomit when some people try to pull the same profitable stunt by carying placards with bloody photos of dead fetuses outside abortion clinics.

Profitable? PROFITABLE? How the heck can you think anything pro-lifers do to save mothers and babies is PROFITABLE?

I find it one of the most ironic things in the world that anti-choice people don't care one whit about a woman whose birth control has failed, or who has been raped, or who is simply not able to healthily carry a child to term - for any reason. They care about the baby because the baby has no voice of his own.

We care about mother and baby, regardless of circumstances. And yes, because the baby has no voice of his own, we try to be that voice.

The only person with that right is the mother. That is because without the mother the child doesn't exist.

You are absolutely right about one thing here -- the pregnant woman IS a mother. And the child is a child. The only choice she has once she's pregnant is whether to have a dead baby or a live one.

[gadgetlady 4]

Anytime someone tries to bring the abortion issue down to a Biblical argument, it immediately loses its value,

I agree. It is not a Biblical argument or a religious issue. It is a human rights issue and a scientific issue.

To me a life is a life when it can be sustained by itself or medical personnel. I think the earliest I've heard of is 26 weeks.

It's down to 18 weeks (gestational age -- 16 weeks fetal age). This is 2nd trimester. Abortion is easily attained in the 2nd trimester (and also attainable in the 3rd trimester).

However, I would not be opposed to abortion being limited to the first 8 weeks.

How do you arrive at the limit of 8 weeks?