Abortion

[Purple Tentacle]

Here's a strong feelings kidney......

Like all right-minded people I'm pro-choice, which is why people like her make me so angry.... killing a baby isn't a decision to take lightly.

What?

Try thinking before typing.

I don't unnerstand?

Aren't they implying that that's inconsistent? I don't think it is, though.

I'd say I'd were pro-choice, but that isn't because I like to see foetusuz aborted...

And I think PT was saying they'll be different circumstances around a mother's choice to abort... now it's feasible that some of these take it less seriously than others, and the ones that take it the least seriously - dare I say it, seeing it as a form of contracteption akin to the morning after pill or even just condoms - don't really help the pro-life argument.

Although if that were their attitude I suppose you could assume they might not make the best mothers.

I don't think you should assume pro-choice don't value life, just because there's another camp that call themselves pro-life...

 

Like all right-minded people I'm pro-choice, which is why people like her make me so angry.... killing a baby isn't a decision to take lightly.

What?

Try thinking before typing.

Neither do I understand.


1) I believe that a woman should have the right to choose whether it's right to have an abortion.

2) An abortion is killing an unborn child. Therefore it's not a decision to take lightly.

It's one of those very thorny subjects that men, as a rule, try not to get involved in.

We're fortunate enough to live in a country where abortion is seen in a very sympathetic light, we tend not to get covens of violent fundementalists stoning women entering clinics, or insane polititians endangering the lives of women with religious dogma.



But... are we TOO liberal?  A compelling argument says that deformities in foetuses can now be spotted a long way before 24 weeks, and I must admit that the idea of terminating a 24 week of baby turns my stomach.... surely by that time you should have made up your mind?



I'm not sure if I caused offence by mentioning that abortion is killing an unborn child... but that's what it is, surely?  As I said before, I believe in women having the right to CHOOSE.... but that doesn't mean that one should completely remove all perspective.



Of course each case on its own merits, which is what makes the topic so very touchy.

[Partridge's Love Child]

The less screaming children around the place the better.  However, I think the ladies in question should go full the full pregnancy, labour and all, because it looks like it's quite painful.  The resulting child should then be humanely put to sleep by playing a Dido record, or chucking into a river in a sack with some broken bottles.  That'll teach 'em to open up, the dirty harlots.

[TraceyQ]

Can I get a new Partidge's Love Child please? I think this one's broken.

[Borboski]

I do think that it's an entirely valid solution to a problem... and also if you aren't backed up by a religion, or some other kind of higher moral arbiter, you're argument against abortion is going to be based on normative values, and have a hard job claiming any kind of moral highground.

Check out Peter Singer at Princeton Uni, possibly the most important philospher at the moment:
http://www.petersingerlinks.com/

It's a sensible distinction to make between a foetus and a baby... and it clearly isn't enough to say that baby is only a baby and not a foetus when it pops out the womb. But then again, (and this is flippant) - how many pro-lifers pleasure themselves? Mass genocide of human life in your palm you guilty bastard.

Ok - so if that doesn't count, what does - when an egg and sperm join? Then it's human life and no earlier? Look at it 5 seconds later - it's a bit of snot, it has no thought, nor memory - get rid!

So what you have is a continuum from snotty life form to born baby.

That's why most pro-lifers just look stupid and ill-informed. They obviously haven't thought the above through. And apply a no-way moral ban.

What about if the mother is raped and doesn't want it? Should she be allowed a pill straight after that would neutralise the sperm? Oh that doesn't count because the egg hasn't been fertalised?

What about if the mother is likely to die because of complications with the foetus? We should force her to die?

To be honest, like Pete, I don't have a massive problem with the discussion of child euthanasia. If we would do it to an adult who is in misery, why not a child? And I certainly support it as an option for an adult... even if the adult has got to a stage whereby he/she can't indicate himself. If the adult is totally without capacity to reason AND in pain, why would it be morally wrong to end that life?

Hmmm... actually it does bother me that... But what if the person is in complete agony? We should treat and continue to force him to agony? What if a foetus will be born into that state? Seems a bit harsh to force an experience of misery...

That said.... there's something nagging away at me.  The rationalist in my says that nagging is an illiberal totemism... but i don't know.

[skibz]

I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, I expect.

I've had to go through four abortions throughout my life. The first I feel horrible about, it was the first time I had sex and I was stupid enough to go into it without a condom - I'm not making any excuses here, it was a fucking stupid thing to do. My girlfriend and I decided that there was no way either of us could bring up a child under the circumstances we were in, and furthermore she threatened to kill herself if I said I wouldn't let her take the pill that you can take up to a week later. The second time was a few years later, with another girlfriend - however, this time, she was on the contraceptive pill and I was wearing a condom. Sod's law came into play and she became pregnant. Once again, it was obvious that neither of us were mature enough or financially able to bring up a child, and she took the pill. I still feel pretty horrible about these times.

The other two times were months later with the same girlfriend, once again with me using a condom and her on the pill. This time, I decided I wanted to keep the baby, however she didn't and so took the abortion pill without my consent, both times, and told me afterwards. The latter time, we had decided upon names, what we were going to do to bring up the kid, etc., before she turned around and told me to my face that she had taken the pill when my back was turned and that there was nothing I could do about it - she said it was her baby, not mine, and so her right to make a decision. According to her, it was either that, or her never seeing me again, and bringing up the child which she would never allow me to see.

As a result of this, I haven't had sex since December last year - I just can't bring myself to get over the fear of what might happen, given previous experience. I'm really not sure what I should do, to be honest - my best mate said he thinks I have some form of 'super juice' that ordinary contraception can't stop, but I think he's winding me up :)

Abortion is something I can't bring myself to comment on either positively or negatively - the word just makes me feel empty, to be honest.

[TraceyQ]

Um... I'm not being funny or owt, but it usually takes a minimum of two weeks or so after having unprotected sex for a woman to discover she is pregnant. Doctors still don't like handing out early abortion pills and she still would have had to have considerable amounts of counselling before it was given.  Are you sure she didnt just take the morning-after pill?

[skibz]

When I said a week after, I meant a week after discovering they were pregnant...

Unless they were all lying to me...

If they were lying, they'll burn in hell.

[Purple Tentacle]

It's nonsense to claim that a 6 month foetus is no different to jizzy sheets.

When does life begin? Of course it's an incredibly tricky question, but that doesn't mean one should just say "oh let's just say it's with birth, because you can't really tell".....

... I have a big problem with the abortion of foetuses that are viable outside the womb. If there's a chance, no matter how slim, that it could survive outside of the womb, then it's very different indeed to a 3 day mass of cells.

Oh crikey, am I playing devil's advocate? Because if I'm asked a thousand times whether or not I support abortion (in the legal sense), then a thousand times yes.

I suppose a part of me thinks that if you give all women the right to choose an abortion, you're giving a lot of idiots the right to choose life or death as well as sensible, adjusted women. Although if you're an irresponsible idiot who's going to flush a baby away because you can't be arsed, then you would clearly be an unfit mother.

Oooh, so tricky, so controversial.



What do I know. I've never been to an abortion clinic, or thankfully ever had to deal directly with someone who has, I'm sure the people there give you a damn good talking to before flushing it out, but it just rtankles when some people and pundits (armchair abortionists?) remove all emotion and sentiment from the act and talk as if it's just having a tooth out.  I daresay that the vast vast majority of women who have an abortion don't see it like that, but even so.....


Oooh, a thread on contraception and a thread of abortion.  I ought to move into Public Information Films, because my life is so perfect and I do everything right and have never made a mistake in my life ever.

Splink!

[Borboski]

Crikey - some of that's bad above.

We've had quite a few dashes to get the morning after bill.

I can't say I'd feel any different to that (which was still pretty stressful) to aborting two weeks later.

Anyway - here's a nice sized article by the aforementioned Peter Singer:

Those who defend women's rights to abortion often refer to themselves as 'pro-choice' rather than as 'pro-abortion'. In this way they seek to bypass the issue of the moral status of the foetus, and instead make the right to abortion a question of individual liberty. But it cannot simply be assumed that a woman's right to have an abortion is a question of individual liberty, for it must first be established that the aborted foetus is not a being worthy of protection. If the foetus is worthy of protection, then laws against abortion do not create 'victimless crimes' as laws against homosexual relations between consenting adults do. So the question of the moral status of the foetus cannot be avoided.

The central argument against abortion may be put like this:

It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
A human foetus is an innocent human being.
Therefore it is wrong to kill a human foetus.

Defenders of abortion usually deny the second premiss of this argument. The dispute about abortion then becomes a dispute about whether a foetus is a human being, or, in other words, when a human life begins. Opponents of abortion challenge others to point to any stage in the gradual process of human development that marks a morally significant dividing-line. Unless there is such a line, they say, we must either upgrade the status of the earliest embryo to that of the child, or downgrade the status of the child to that of the foetus; and no one advocates the latter course.

The most commonly suggested dividing-lines between the fertilized egg and the child are birth and viability. Both are open to objection. A prematurely born infant may well be less developed in these respects than a foetus nearing the end of its normal term, and it seems peculiar to hold that we may not kill the premature infant, but may kill the more developed foetus. The point of viability varies according to the state of medical technology, and, again, it is odd to hold that a foetus has a right to life if the pregnant woman lives in London, but not if she lives in New Guinea.

Those who wish to deny the foetus a right to life may be on stronger ground if they challenge the first, rather than the second, premiss of the argument set out above. To describe a being as 'human' is to use a term that straddles two distinct notions: membership of the species Homo sapiens, and being a person, in the sense of a rational or self-conscious being. If 'human' is taken as equivalent to 'person', the second premiss of the argument, which asserts that the foetus is a human being, is clearly false; for one cannot plausibly argue that a foetus is either rational or self-conscious. If, on the other hand, 'human' is taken to mean no more than 'member of the species Homo sapiens', then it needs to be shown why mere membership of a given biological species should be a sufficient basis for a right to life. Rather, the defender of abortion may wish to argue, we should look at the foetus for what it is - the actual characteristics it possesses - and value its life accordingly.

http://www.petersingerlinks.com/abortion.htm

[Partridge's Love Child]

Ah, I was only lakeing.

Tis indeed a difficult question.  Quite how aware a child in the womb is at certain points of itself is a question I guess we'll never know.  Or at least until someone turns to their mother and says, "I wish they'd have turned down the sound at that Green Day concert you went to, I was trying to get some kip and it was rattling through into your uterus like no one's business.  Your big bucket fanny made it echo as well."  I guess there's a touch of the old should we kill flies? argument about it as well - lives are lives whether it's a developing sprog in the womb or David Bowie.

Personally I'm on the pro-choice side.  I think it's particularly of importance when the prenancy has been caused by a rape.  Quite how a woman would battle with the psychological extremes of motherly love, and hatred and fear for the actual conception I really cannot begin to contemplate.  I also cannot imagine what it would be like to know you were the result of arguably the worst experience of your mother's life.

However, as Poipul says, I do think the actual process of having an abortion is taken too lightly by some.  Having seen how large a foetus is at 24 weeks I was quite astonished at how well formed, nay, just how large it is.  It's a baby by that time, it's not a peanut or an ugly blaumonge splat.  

Termination is an almighty decision to make, and one I had to contemplate at one point before a certain very very very late period finally arrived.  At that time we were not in any way financially secure (not that we are now), in fact we weren't even living in the same city as I recall.  There was no way we could support ourselves and a child, but yet the thought of aborting was a horrible horrible thought.  It's a choice I still believe people should be allowed to make, but one I really would never want to be in a position to have to do myself.  What the answer is I really don't know.  Just rubber up, kids <winks and sticks thumbs up.>

[TraceyQ]

Ah, I see. How odd. Yes, I think it's probably best you keep it in your pants if you can get a girl pregnant while using condoms and her being on the pill.


I got pregnant while on the pill, btw, I know it does happen. I also know when I went to my local family planning clinic for an abortion I was offered one straight away without any fuss and given an appointment on the spot for a week later. My "accident" is now 5 and away with his Aunt in Disneyland Paris.

[Borboski]

I'm sure the people there give you a damn good talking to before flushing it out

Mrs Borboski was incredibly pro-life until one of her friends who was bang at it get pregnant and she went with her to the clinic. She wasn't offered any support/advice/counselling - it was a straight in and out job. (The abortion, not the act which caused the abortion).

Which surprised. That said, if she knew what she wanted, and was a young confident women, why not, yah?

[Borboski]

EDIT:

In many ways, editing this double post felt a lot like an abortion. The post never had a chance, a life of its own, but it was cruelly cut short by my pro-choice ways.

[Purple Tentacle]

That's disgraceful, I just assumed they would have some fucking ounce of psychological and social responsibility.

[TraceyQ]

Why? If you're adult enough to go getting pregnant you should be adult enough to know what you want.

[Frinky]

Why? If yo're adult enough to go getting pregnant

Surely that's the problem, thought? An ex's sister had had 2 abortions by 17. She hadn't a clue what she was doing and wasn't guided through it at all.

[TraceyQ]

Surely the point is that she was silly enough to get pregnant twice, not the fact she was allowed two abortions.

[Purple Tentacle]

Why? If you're adult enough to go getting pregnant you should be adult enough to know what you want.

No! That's a very generous attitude to all girls (and of course boys) who fuck.

The ability to insert/recieve lovegristle does not mean you are mature, in the same way that not all women who give birth are automatically saintly mothers.


As a matter of interest, and I'm aware it's grossly intrusive to ask, (funny how I would never ask something like this in real life, ah well), why did you not go ahead with your abortion, Tracey?

[hencole]

Abstention is the only way you sinners. Come join me.

[Ambient Sheep]

As a result of this, I haven't had sex since December last year - I just can't bring myself to get over the fear of what might happen, given previous experience.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

An ex-work colleague of mine had a similar if slightly different problem: his girlfriend got accidentally pregnant and she had an abortion, somewhat against his wishes I think.  Afterwards he couldn't ever get it up again with her due to thinking about the unborn baby, and they split up a few months later.

(Sorry, I don't know any further details such as contraception methods or how old the foetus was at the time; about 12-16 weeks I'd guess, but I really don't know.)

[TJ]

Oooh, a thread on contraception and a thread of abortion.  I ought to move into Public Information Films, because my life is so perfect and I do everything right and have never made a mistake in my life ever.

Splink!

I'm sorry, I really do hate to interrupt threads in this way, but that really has conjured up a strange image of Jon Pertwee lecturing the viewing nation about safe methods of contraception.

"Now we know how to thay it, we can *all* cross the road... and have thex! Thplink!"

[Partridge's Love Child]

Why? If you're adult enough to go getting pregnant you should be adult enough to know what you want.

I get your point, but societally we don't even deem those old enough to legally have sex sufficiently responsible to watch others doing it on a video, nor do we entrust them to make a political decision or even drink a pint of beer.  Interesting that we won't let them get pissed, but we'll let them have a baby hoovered out of their vadge.

Ahm no saying it's right or wrong, I'm just raising the point.

[TraceyQ]

As a matter of interest, and I'm aware it's grossly intrusive to ask, (funny how I would never ask something like this in real life, ah well), why did you not go ahead with your abortion, Tracey?

Well, many reasons, really. When I first discovered I was pregnant we (my kid's dad and I) were both horrified, and the kneejerk reaction was "get rid of it, now", but after I went to see the doctor and she confirmed I was pregnant and got my appointment I began to feel incredibly guilty. We already had a son who was a little under 2 years old at the time. (He was also unplanned but to be honest we hadnt used any sort of contraception so having an abortion was not an issue for either of us).  I started to think that maybe the new baby would be a Good Thing as we always intended on having a brother or sister for George but had always hoped we would be able to choose the time that happened.  Eventually we just kind of came around to the idea of completing our family a little earlier than we had planned and although we knew it meant we would have to change a lot in our lives there were more reasons for having the child than against.

Oooh, and another thing that I've mentioned before. I felt incredibly pregnant. As much as I didnt want to accept the fact I was pregnant I still had plenty of symptoms, morning sickness, tender breasts, extreme thirst, bunged up nose, metallic taste in my mouth. I'm not one of these women that can glide along and forget what's happening inside them.

[Frinky]

Surely the point is that she was silly enough to get pregnant twice

Er, yes, that was my point. She got drunk, fucked, and pregnant*. Being sober and getting an abortion is somewhat different. For it to be so clinical and basic to someone so young made it a lot worse for her.

*Yeah, I know that's her own fault, but, yunno, she ain't the only one.

[TraceyQ]

Does it make me evil if I said I had no sympathy for her?

[TotalNightmare]

Abortions for no one...

BOOOOO

ok then... Abortions for all!!

BOOOOO

[Partridge's Love Child]

I'm not one of these women that can glide along and forget what's happening inside them.

I've known ladies who couldn't say the same even during potential conception.

[fanny splendid]

Hahahahahaha, superb!



Oops, sorry.

Carry on with your 'serious' thread.

[Frinky]

Does it make me evil if I said I had no sympathy for her?

Not really. I was just agreeing with PT, and saying that it's not always that clear cut.

[TraceyQ]

That's ok then. I have no sympathy for her.