Abortion? Which side do you fall on?

[BGT Masters]

Determining it would be a tough one in some cases where the woman possibly just might be saying she was raped to get an abortion. (If it weren't legal). However I can;t see how forcing a woman to give birth to a child when she didn't voluntarily have sex with someone.

Its bad enough a woman might be raped but making her give birth to a child that is half the rapist is just wrong. I'm against abortion myself but like most things there is a grey area. How would someone feel if your wife was raped and you were forced to have the child and raise it as your own? Some might be able to over look it, I wouldn't.

[duane1969]

Since a lot of people are posting exceptions for abortions as incest or rape let me ask how people feel about birth defects. not talking about the ones that people can still live long normal lives, but the ones where the babies only live short painful lives once they are birthed?

also if you say it's okay in cases of rape and incest... how do you propose they determine a woman was raped or impregnated by a family member in order to give clearance to go ahead with that abortion? making it legal in cases of incest or rape would be very difficult to regulate.

Aborting a fetus because some test shows it will have birth defects is both wrong (elitist society?) and a bad choice (see below).

When my wife was pregnant with our oldest son she was very, very sick. The doctor insisted that she have an abortion and told her that the baby would definitely have birth defects and/or be mentally impaired. We refused to abort. He was so angry that we would not comply with his abortion demand that he refused to see my wife anymore.

Our "physically defective" son was a multisport athlete (football, track, wrestling, cross country) and placed 5th in the state in wrestling as a senior. His "mental impairment" limited him to only 3 college scholarships after having a 3.6 GPA in high school.

[duane1969]

Determining it would be a tough one in some cases where the woman possibly just might be saying she was raped to get an abortion. (If it weren't legal). However I can;t see how forcing a woman to give birth to a child when she didn't voluntarily have sex with someone.

Its bad enough a woman might be raped but making her give birth to a child that is half the rapist is just wrong. I'm against abortion myself but like most things there is a grey area. How would someone feel if your wife was raped and you were forced to have the child and raise it as your own? Some might be able to over look it, I wouldn't.

I don't disagree with your position but there is no reason you would be forced to raise it as your own. Adoption is an option.

[habsheaven]

Determining it would be a tough one in some cases where the woman possibly just might be saying she was raped to get an abortion. (If it weren't legal). However I can;t see how forcing a woman to give birth to a child when she didn't voluntarily have sex with someone.

Its bad enough a woman might be raped but making her give birth to a child that is half the rapist is just wrong. I'm against abortion myself but like most things there is a grey area. How would someone feel if your wife was raped and you were forced to have the child and raise it as your own? Some might be able to over look it, I wouldn't.

See this is where I have a problem. You stated that LIFE begins at conception in your earlier post, yet you would be okay with taking that life in order to save the woman from some emotional pain/stress. Why is that? Do you not VALUE that life as much as you value the life of another human being?

[BGT Masters]

Good point, I honestly never thought of that because it would never cross my mind to put a child up for adoption. I should change what I said, and say a woman shouldn't be forced to carry and give birth to a child who she doesn't want, who was conceived by her getting raped. Its bad enough what they had to go through, and have to live with for their entire lives. The mental stress dealing with it must be unbearable, let alone dealing with it while being pregnant with the person's child.

I am more on the common sense stance of it, if you don't want children don't have sex. If you want to have sex, but are willing to take the one in a million chance, wear protection. If the protection doesn't work man up and deal with it. I should also say even though I believe you are human at the MOC, I am not against the morning after pill. I guess that's the gray area of the topic for me.

[AUTaxMan]

I find myself agreeing with habs twice in one day. Logic provides no exceptions to the abortion debate, even in the most unsavory of circumstances, if you are truly pro-life and believe that life begins at conception. When I was younger, I believed in exceptions for rape and incest, but I just can't do it now.

[BGT Masters]

See this is where I have a problem. You stated that LIFE begins at conception in your earlier post, yet you would be okay with taking that life in order to save the woman from some emotional pain/stress. Why is that? Do you not VALUE that life as much as you value the life of another human being?

As I just mentioned in my last post, before I see you wrote this. Everything has a grey area. I don't believe in taking a human life, but if someone is in my house beating my girlfriend to an inch of her life, I'd take their life and not think twice about it. There are gray area's with most things in life. Not many things in life are so cut and dry. So in this gray area, if a woman is raped, I think then the woman should have a choice. To not think that, is sickening and disturbing even for someone who is pro life. Just because I am pro life doesn't mean I'm so stupid I must stick to my guns no matter what.

[habsheaven]

As I just mentioned in my last post, before I see you wrote this. Everything has a grey area. I don't believe in taking a human life, but if someone is in my house beating my girlfriend to an inch of her life, I'd take their life and not think twice about it. There are gray area's with most things in life. Not many things in life are so cut and dry. So in this gray area, if a woman is raped, I think then the woman should have a choice. To not think that, is sickening and disturbing even for someone who is pro life. Just because I am pro life doesn't mean I'm so stupid I must stick to my guns no matter what.

I agree with you. I am of the belief that although life can be argued to begin at conception, I do not believe that life should be valued equally to other stages of life.

This is my interpretation of that grey area you speak of. I think that is why so many people "accept" abortion as a legal option for others but not a moral option for themselves. For example, it would never be an option for me and my wife but I do not want to restrict that choice on other women in most cases.

[BGT Masters]

Since we had to list one or the other I listed Pro Life. However in all honesty like I mentioned I am more 95% Pro Life 5% Pro Choice. So I guess in that essence I have to be pro choice. I believe that if two adults make a conscious decision to have sex and they get pregnant, they shouldn't be given an out like abortion, adoption yes, abortion no. The 5% comes in, to rapes, morning after stuff, even if its in a certain amount of time and the birth would likely kill the mother. Just because I am Pro Life doesn't mean I wouldn't vote Pro Choice.

My personal believes don't out weigh the rights of many and that grey area we speak of. In a perfect world, where people aren't raped, and some pregnancy's didn't risk the mother's life I would be 100% Pro Life unfortunately that's not the case and never will be. Its a really touchy topic, no matter how you look at it. To me it just seems wrong to have unprotected sex, get pregnant, then get abortions.


Your interpretation BTW is pretty spot on for me.

[gatorboymike]

Interesting how people who claim to be "pro-life" are almost always pro-war, pro-death penalty, anti-sex education, anti-contraception, anti-gun control and anti-child services, and demand that pregnant mothers go through with deliveries that will almost certainly kill both them and the baby. Interesting how whenever you hear about doctors or their patients being murdered, the killer is always a pro-lifer ranting and screeching about the "sanctity of life." Oh yes..."Life is sacred, therefore I'm going to kill you." Makes about as much sense as anything else that comes out of the religious right.

Stop, I know what you're going to say. "You can't compare being pro-war, pro-death penalty and anti-gun control to being pro-life, because killing in wartime, killing convicted criminals and killing in 'self-defense' are NOT murder, but abortion IS murder!" Yeah, you know what? That's a pointless argument. Humans have been debating and reversing on exactly which circumstances of killing are and are not murder for centuries, and it's all completely culturally relative and self-serving. Killing someone from a different tribe used to not be murder. Killing a slave used to not be murder. Killing political dissidents used to not be murder. Killing prisoners of war used to not be murder. Stop trying to pretend there's some objective standard of when it is OK to kill someone and when it is not OK to kill someone. It's nothing more than an Us vs. Them thing, pure tribalism, and that's all it has ever been and will ever be. When someone from Us gets killed, it's murder. When someone from Them gets killed, it's not murder. A fetus is part of Us, so it's not OK to kill a fetus. An abortion doctor is part of Them, so it is OK to kill an abortion doctor. Well, you know what? If some invading army from a foreign nation invaded your hometown and killed your family under the pretext of war, you know you'd be the first one to jump up and decry it as murder, but when your country's army does that to some other country, then it's not murder? Pppbbphph.

Most pro-lifers have no concern for the child's well-being at all, however much they might pretend they do. What if the child won't survive the delivery? "We don't care, have it anyway." What if the mother won't survive the delivery? "We don't care, have it anyway." What if neither the mother nor the child will survive the delivery? "We don't care, have it anyway." What if the child has a horrible birth defect that will make its life agonizing and short? "We don't care, have it anyway." What if the parents are completely unfit to take care of a child? "We don't care, have it anyway." What if the parents are willing to care for the child but not able? "We don't care, have it anyway. We want to shut down any and all government assistance to people like you. You should have thought of that before you had sex." Oh, there we go. That's what this is all about, isn't it? They just want to use the child as a means to punish the parents. Basically, this is what they have to say to anyone considering abortion: "We don't care if you were raped by your uncle and it would kill you and the baby to go through with the birth. You deserve everything that happened to you. So you freakin' have the baby, and you freakin' die, and you freakin' love it, because then you and your baby can be together in heaven. The alternative is you go to hell. Well, actually, we think you'll go to hell no matter what you do, and we love that. Now get out of here, we're in the middle of a game of golf."

The real reasons they're against abortion are these:
- If someone has an abortion, that means they had sex, which means they were not obeying my religion.
- Every fetus that gets aborted is another one that won't grow up to give money to my church.
- Every fetus that gets aborted is one less vote for Rick Perry, or whatever fundigelical whack-job politician I'm drooling over this week.