Perhaps the correct statement was "Rep. Turner of Ohio is doing it right."

I'd be more on board with this whole "women's body->women's choice" thing if I didn't have to pay child support to like 4 baby mommas whose offspring I wanted to have ripped out of her uterus. shiiiiiit

Does this post contain any humor?

*board

*reid

"life begins at conception and ends at birth", or at least their desire to protect life.

Controlling women controlling men.

Are there really that many abortions being had when the fetus is that old? Someone find stats.
Seems most women terminate far sooner than that. At 18 weeks, the abortion would likely be due to some birth defect or the mother's health might be in danger. Either way, it's up to her and shouldn't involve the religious right or government.

This is just wiki-answers, but for what it's worth, it looks like around 1% of abortions happen after 21 weeks.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percent_ ... r_20_weeks

I don't think it matters at all what a fetus looks like. What matters, IMHO, is whether it's viable or not. At viability, the fetus now has the right to life. What muddies the water is that we're getting better and better at keeping babies alive earlier and earlier.

We could grow a baby in a 'gestation tank', just no one has the balls to do it. Or admit that they have tried. Making them viable at basically any point. So for as long as babies are grown in the womb, it's the woman's body and no one else's choice.

I don't think we're in disagreement.

you're not broken iris

I like all things stated here, carry on women!

I think it'll be fair to ban abortions because of the 1% that get them late term as soon as we ban all guns because of the 67% of homicides they're involved in.

Spoiler: show

I support abortion because it cuts down on the number of african american kids running around

Is the world back as it should be now?


Actually, I have always said it should be legal and other's choices on the subject are none of my f**king business, but that doesn't mean I like it or wouldn't try to encourage investigating alternatives should a family member be at that decision point. As a father, it disturbs me how little regard the laws governing parental rights have for the fathers wants and situation after the child is born, but I agree wholeheartedly that so long as the child is in the mother's womb the woman's rights and wishes take precedent over the father's and most certainly over the government's or church's views. I am often surprised at the anti-abortion stance that so many Libertarians/Conservatives take given their self-proclaimed belief in reduction of government authority. Reproductive rights and sexual freedom seem like the most obvious case for telling the government to stay out.


*attention mods: the spoiler above was just a little bit of black humor and not meant to be serious or offend.

I feel much better now, thx



as to the first part of your comment - this is basically my feeling about it, and one of the reasons I bristle at the idea that women and/or men are 'pro-abortion' - it's absurd. given a viable alternative, I don't imagine many women would want to go through an abortion, and certainly wouldn't think of it as a functional form of birth control in ANY regard etc etc (which I note only because I actually have heard men spout this kind of tripe about women fucking everyone they can because, hell, they can just get an abortion to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy, skanky whores that they are) - I mean think about it - not necessarily you, anyone - abortion/D&C are hugely invasive procedures, it's humiliating, it's shame and guilt inducing, and it's potentially lethal if done inexpertly. I just don't know any woman who eagerly prances off to a clinic to have it done.
we're life-bearers - it goes against the instinctual drive to reproduce, and nurture a life -

being prochoice doesn't ignore that, it only allows for the ability to end a pregnancy in a safe and healthy manner without the societal punishments of these procedures being illegal.

regarding the involvement of the potential father in the decision: I don't oppose the idea so much as I don't know that the potential father has as much to lose in the situation. therefore, the woman still ends up being at the most risk, both physically and socially, and in most cases, being the one who will have to raise the child if the father decides to run for the hills - I don't think all men will, but if abortion is being considered, it's likely that partially, it's because the 'father' has already indicated they don't want a child.

and last - I'm not terribly surprised by politically conservative people supporting making it illegal (in whatever form) - people perceive the world in relation to themselves first - to other people second or sometimes not at all. if it doesn't affect them, and goes against their own beliefs in the beginnings of life, or their religious beliefs (going to hell for an abortion, as in) - then why wouldn't they be all for making it illegal?

I also hasten to add that these are often also the same type of people who desire to exert control over other people, be they women, minorities, subordinates in a work environment - it doesn't matter - it's about control in my mind, and a (usually unidentified or unadmitted) desire to hold power over others in order display to themselves their own sense of dominance/dispel their own insecurities ...

that's my take on it.


I'm almost liking you at this point. cut that shit out

I venture into this thread with caution because I don't know any of you personally and this is such a delicate subject that it would be easy to make enemies out of differing worldviews, which is a terrible consequence. I've found a lot of the commentary so far to be thoughtful and challenging and good for reflection and I hope I can offer the same, albeit from a different perspective (I intentionally didn't choose 'opposite perspective' because as soon as difference becomes opposition, dialogue ends). Abortion is such a complex issue that it's really a shame that it's so often pushed into a binary set of pro life or pro choice. And then there's the complexity of making laws based on moral preferences and whose moral preferences take precedent. So, that is to say that I hope I don't make enemies while I challenge at least some of the prevailing sentiment of this thread.

I'd like to raise issue with the viability argument for when abortion should become unlawful. I think that overlooks the idea of cause and effect--an egg is fertilized and the typical outcome is a 9-month gestation followed by birth. Of course, nature could intervene with any number of things to interrupt that process. But, I feel like you could make a philosophical point that choosing any point during gestation to terminate the process is sort of arbitrary. Whether the life could have sustained outside the womb at the chosen point of intervention becomes a difficult question to really address because the life wouldn't have had survive to without the intervention. Saying it's a woman's choice part of the time and at some time that changes yet the life is still inside her, that seems like a weird distinction to make.

I feel like if it's a choice, the choice lasts 9 months. And I feel like then you have to confront the fact that on one end of that spectrum, the life really looks like a human being, and at the other end of the spectrum it doesn't at all. But at which end is it more alive? I'm comfortable with the idea that it's equally alive the entire time, and so I have deep misgivings about intervening to terminate at any time.

All that said, I also believe that the baby's life is not the only one to be considered. There is also the woman. (And, as a matter of fact, there's also the man, and the ease with which a man can abdicate from the reproductive outcome of sex relative to a woman is a whole other can of worms.) For some women, I truly believe their time of choice was when they had sex and in those cases I feel very clear-minded that an abortion would be tragic.

Still, there are countless cases where sex isn't the woman's choice (and even in some instances, while sex may be a physical assent, it certainly wasn't the woman's psychological choice). In those situations, I can't come to a resolution in my mind. It's just too murky, and definitely too murky for me to feel comfortable codifying it into law. Having a kid of my own, though, I can say that the life of a child can be a huge blessing in ways that you don't really understand until you have one. There are moments that are so profoundly beautiful that they just might be able to bring some amount of redemptive joy to even a heartbreaking scenario like pregnancy from rape. I couldn't make a law out of that potential, but I could definitely offer it to someone considering an abortion as something to weight in their mind.

I get pretty discouraged (and even embarrassed) by the exhaustive efforts of some to move this moral debate solely into the legislative field. I feel like lots of people expound enormous energy on protesting and lobbying and if they truly cared about the issue they could better use their efforts to care for women who had an unwanted pregnancy (financially and emotionally), mentor at-risk kids of both genders to encourage responsible sexual decisions, and overall make their stand against abortion from the ground up rather than the top down.

And I have serious qualms about forcing abortion to go underground where it could and often does get truly brutal for both women and babies. Ultimately, I still feel like people who are against abortion have better opportunities to love those they wish to influence rather than adjudicate them. And still, for all that, I can't get comfortable in my conscience with casting a vote for legal abortion across the board, if it ever really came to a vote. (For the record, I voted Obama twice, and Kerry before that [and W before that but I was just coming out of high school and didn't know better].)

Also, I think guns are dumb and almost no gun-owners or NRA members would qualify as belonging to a constitutionally-protected 'well-regulated militia', so they should have all their guns taken away.

And I'd be all for a DNA database of smokers so that all the cigarette butts thrown on the ground could be traced back to their owners with a fee of $1 per.

So, I guess you could say I ain't no democrat, but I sure as fuck ain't a republican either (since this is a branch of a Pearl Jam, after all).

In an ideal world there would be enough education, access to contraception and support of parents in less than ideal situations, to make abortion unnecessary. But we don't live it it. And until we do, I'll be happy to call myself pro-choice.

Something that hasn't be mentioned here, is the fact that many women seeking abortion already have children. Some have children they are already struggling to support. I don't think they should have to jump through hoops for a procedure, and then forced and expected to shamefully hide and/or lie about that procedure, when that procedure may be the best, safest and most sensible option for them, their families and the children they may go on to have.

A pregnancy (at an early stage, at least) is the potential for a child. In my opinion* the needs of people actually alive need to come first. Don't ask me when this potential becomes viable, I'll leave that to people more intelligent then me to decide (and there are many of them).


*this is my opinion after two large glasses of wine. I'm pretty sure it was my opinion before them, but maybe more eloquently expressed. Forgive me.

I don't like the viability of the fetus/baby as the line in the sand as it will over time make abortions harder and harder to get. I think all the alternatives should just get easier.