GV I don't see how you can be so loving on so many other stances and then turn your back on this... I'd want a child to live just to see the color green. Stop equating being poor, or having a rough life, with misery and pain.... The baby never gets a choice, never gets life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Talk about unconstitutional. Create a right for that.
Your father sounds like an awesome guy, and I'm happy you have such a strong bond with him. It's truly beautiful. I'm not advocating abortion. I consider myself "pro-life" (though I despise these labels), but I think the mother knows better than anyone what kind of life this baby will have. In my mind, the principle of the issue is less important than the health and well-being of that individual baby. If a mother wants to abort the fetus, but can't, how good a mother will she be? What kind of love can a baby expect from a mother who wanted to abort him, but couldn't? That's not fair to the baby. This example obviously isn't applicable to all women, but removing the choice from every equation will bring (as cited here) 3,000 unwanted babies into the world everyday. There's too much gray area for this to be a yes/no issue. And if it's not a yes/no situation, then there has to be a choice involved.
again...a mother isn't the only place a child can learn love. she isn't the only source of all that's good about life...of all that's worth living for. and we don't condition your right to life based on how motherly your mother is/was. and who gave us the authority to decide for the baby whether or not it wants to live or not? nature has a way of working that out. and we don't PRESUME that a living being wishes to die...to the contrary, we write laws presuming they wish to live. i hate to go back from macro to the micro again...but my father fits your definition perfectly...he had a mother who did not give a rip about him until he was married and she faced regret. she was not a good mother. she left in a home by himself in a strange town at age 6 all night so she could go out and party with friends. she abdicated all responsibility, and my father had no clue what parental love was, with the exception he knew she wasn't doing what she was supposed to be doing. is there no place in the world for a child like that?? is there no hope that someone, at some time, will reach out to that child and love him? is there nothing else at all worth living for?? i would answer those questions with a resounding no.
LEt's just lower our standards then because some people are going to continue to break the law. Raise the bar andy, quit lowering it.
I agree with you 100-percent. I just think the issue is much too complicated for one principle to be applied universally.
Originally posted by andymoon: Just like prohibition has cut drug use, right? <b>What would the levels of use be without prohibition?</b> Rich people will simply leave the country to get abortions while middle and lower class people will go to back alley abortionists to have a medical procedure performed in unsanitary, unlicensed facilities by (more than likely) illegitimate medical providers. <b>Hasn't part of the problem been ignorance about the dangers of back-alley abortions? Hell, clinical abortions are more dangerous than most people, even today, realize! There are other options. No one has to keep a baby if they don't want to.</b> You may want to go back to the bad old days of abortion prohibition, but the vast majority of Americans do not. Before you slam me for my vast majority claim, even the stats that MadMax provided way back when in the last long abortion thread stated that only a small minority of people support complete prohibition of abortion. The percentages get higher as the pregnancy progresses through the second trimester because people like me believe that if you are going to have an abortion, you should make the decision ASAP. <b>Ask how-many-million dead babies how bad those days were?</b> I will continue to maintain that EVERY SINGLE medical procedure in this country should be performed by qualified medical personnel in licensed medical facilities. <b>Me too.</b>
I don't like abortion, but pro life people get on my nerves. I'm not calling anyone in particular out, but being a Texas A&M student, I deal with these people daily. They talk about saving the life a baby, but after the baby is born, they could care less what happens. I mean, heaven forbid we should offer assistance to mothers who probably shouldn't even have kids while they are out of work or at an extremely low paying job. Improve orphanages, not our problem. Healthcare for the child, what are we, commies? What about preventing abortions by preventing teen pregnancies etc? Even though all inclusive sex ed has had great results in other countries, we need to move to abstinence only, even if the rates increase in places where it's practiced.
Good Post... both parts of the issue should be looked out for, however, abortion is so much more of a direct attack on life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (which by the way, does not mean pursuit of riches and property) I think there are more prudent solutions to fixing problems after birth that have to do less with a free handout and more on responsibility... But the abstinence thing is right on...
Hence the conservative hypocrisy on the abortion issue. Banning abortions while failing to provide adequate welfare for the mother who decides to have the child.
No, we have to be realists and have a policy that reflects the reality of the situation. The reality is that prohibition (of anything) does not work and adds more harm to already dangerous situations. Prohibiting abortion will not stop people from getting abortions, it will only force those people to suffer MUCH more than is necessary and introduces dangers that are not present in a regulated system (death, infection, untrained personnel, unsanitary conditions, etc.). I don't have a problem with raising the bar and reducing rates of abortion, but prohibition will not accomplish that goal. If we are to reduce abortion rates, we need to do it through education and distribution of effective contraception.
So you are in favoring of basing the law off of criminal behavior... These people shouldn't be doing underground abortions and they should be shut down, not just accepted. If you have a problem with something in you you change it, not just lower your standards...
Hence the pro-abortionist hypocrisy on the abortion issue. Protecting 'choice' while failing to give the most innocent any sort of choice. I have said time and time again that I support welfare for mothers that have the child. Child welfare takes up a lot less of the budget than, say, defense spending.
According to available statistics, lower than we have now. Are you seriously trying to make the case that abortions today are less safe than they were when abortion was illegal? Ask the people who lived in that time and were exposed to that system. Then how could you possibly support a ban on abortion? Abortion is a medical procedure that will be performed regardless of legality. The only teneble solution is regulated abortions provided by trained medical personnel in licensed facilities.
Whatever the case may be they are definitely not safe in any way shape or form... I've heard horror stories from people before about unhygenic conditions, being treated like a number, etc. etc.
