I'm a big fan of fourth trimester abortions myself.

I support time-travelers' rights to give abortions to the mothers of future dictators. Vote Yes on Prop 317!

Seriously, I'm pro-choice, although it should be a last resort, and people should be educated thoroughly about protection while in school, and be easily able to acquire it.

I have noticed that the fundamental difference between pro-choice and pro-life shows up in the terminology each group uses.
Pro-choicers: fetus/bit of fetal tissue
Pro-lifers: baby/unborn baby
Mothers' social/psychological needs out-way the life of a mass of fetal tissue, but not the life of another human.

Hence the cry "Baby killer!"

Anybody else notice this?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-attempt-to-become-a-fan-of-EVERYTHING/109079179120699?ref=ts

I believe that the fetus, having its own set of unique human DNA and considering its rapid state of development throughout the pregnancy, has just as much right to life as any other child who depends on others for support. Quite frankly it was the mothers choice (for rape etc. see below) to engage in sexual activity, and reproduction is a natural consequence. I see value in every human life, and quite frankly why should an irresponsible teenager be given the power of life or death over a "potential human" who hasn't even had a breath of air. The argument "a woman has a right to control her body" to me is somewhat ridiculous, you are controlling your body when you have sex, when you have an abortion you are destroying another body, its just not fully developed yet.

The only exceptions to abortion that I see as a fit cause for debate (and frankly I support them) is in cases of rape/incest or where there is maternal danger in carrying a pregnancy to term. Although over the last 50 years in America these have made up less than 5% of abortions, people are destroying human life for convenience sake.

My bad, 37 years... sorry guys, that wasn't really an important stat but it was an obvious one. Also to clarify, the 5% is more like 2.7%, 5% is just safe.

There is ALWAYS maternal danger in carrying a pregnancy to term. Having a baby doesn't just mean being fat for a few months and then getting skinny again. It
amazes me how few people seem to recognize that.

Having said that, I still think there should be SOME restrictions on abortion, in order to prevent situations with women getting abortions every year or two since they refuse to use birth control.

But what the hell do I know. I'm the stereotypical Internet loser-I'm 15 years old and typing away in my basement.

Don't be foolish drrobotnik, I mean critical risk (which I feel was fairly blatant given the context) where doctors have assessed the risk, and recommend termination for the mother's survival. And even if I were to take your comment at face value, the risk arises from choices that individuals make, and at the end of the day my sympathy lies with the party that had no say... the fetus, people who have sex without considering the consequences should not be allowed to abort, there is such a huge adoption market, the fact that millions of pregnancies are terminated each year is horrific.

Also I would be interested in hearing your credentials on speaking to the health risks of an average pregnancy.

Looks like you answered my question.

Sorry, TMW, but this is not 'a change'. The abortion issue has ALSO been done to death on here, and I am very, very bored of it.

I won't join in here, but I'm basically on the pro-choice side. That won't surprise many people.

"The argument "a woman has a right to control her body" to me is somewhat ridiculous, you are controlling your body when you have sex, when you have an abortion you are destroying another body, its just not fully developed yet."

Exactly.

A big problem we have is the myth of contraception. A huge number of people engage in sex under the false belief that condoms will stop them getting pregnant. In reality a condom will fail 2% of the time even when used correctly, and a lot of the time if mistakes are made when applied. The end result of this is a huge number of unwanted pregnancies in which the potential parents are largely blameless.

Are we to condemn these innocent people to an avoidable life changing experience that terrifies them? Are we to force into this world a child who will be unwanted and resented by its parents? This is not something my conscience can allow.

KK shares my exact views. Pro-life with exceptions.

@ Octavious --

If you engage in sexual activity and use birth control with a 2% failure rate, you take that much of a chance. B/C companies need to be required to put the failure rate and instructions for proper use on the packaging. The only birth control with a 0% failure rate is abstinence.

Octavious - So let me get this straight. People use something (contraception) that they know has a certain failure rate, which, though somewhat low, is certainly not negligible. Then when it does fail (which they knew could happen), they should be able to kill the new life so that they can "undo" the results? That does not make sense. Would you do something that had a 2% chance of altering your life forever just because it feels good for a few minutes? If so, why would you be that mad when the 2% event did occur (since you knew, with enough repetition, that it could and maybe even would occur)?

Also, I am not quite sure how killing someone because they might be unwanted and resented makes any logical sense at all.

My point is that a huge amount of people are not aware of the failure rate. You may argue that they should be aware, but in many cases sex education fails badly at explaining this and often promotes condoms as the answer to everything. The unfortunate fact is that there are a vast number of people out there who are convinced that a condom is a perfect barrier.

I am not in favour of killing anyone. I am in favour of preventing an unwanted and life destroying someone from being brought into existense. But as we will never agree on when a lump of multiplying cells because a human being I feel it is pointless discussing it.

Well to be fair, shouldn't we examine the other side? If you're unwilling to have abortion, are you willing to have all of us, as a society, pay for and take care of and just generally deal with the many, many underprivileged children that would then be born, for the rest of their natural lives, or however long it would be necessary?

I support birth control and abortion because hey, life is great, and you shouldn't have to live a crappy life because of a mistake. A fetus doesn't know it's alive yet (so far as we can tell). I'd rather it not experience a life of want and suffering for no reason, just to teach its parents a little responsibility. It's not worth it. You shouldn't ruin three people's lives for something like that. What if the mother has a miscarriage, is she prosecuted for neglect or manslaughter or chance-medley (look it up, awesome word) or murder? No, of course she isn't. If the fetus is going to be made a human citizen, then it needs to always be one, and that's not a precedent I want to set. If you want to protect something that thinks and feels, how about chimpanzees, that are experimented on every day? Never heard a pro-life person give a crap about that.

And yes, life is great, but every day, we make choices that, by degrees and minutes and seconds, kill people. I didn't give change to a homeless person yesterday. I probably .0001 murdered them. There's no binary distinction between entirely ruining a life and not. Every action we take, however small, has an effect, and we have to prioritize. We'd go crazy if we spent all our time trying to save life.

@Octavious, +1

Interesting way of looking at it Stukus. I propose this - lets ban all abortions. But for everyone who would have had an abortion in absence of the law, every tax paying citizen has to pay $0.10 into a fund to take care of that child until he/she is 18. So if in 2010, the new law prevents 3000 abortions, every citizen has to pay $300 to support those children.

Octavious - There is no disagreement among reasonable persons about whether a "lump of cells" as you put it is a distinct, unique, living organism of the genus and species homo sapiens. After we are concieved, this is just scientifically true. You may disagree with whether or not this is a person (as distinct from a human, which I personally find to be nonsense but some would argue this), but you can not argue that we are somehow not human in the biological sense from the moment of conception.

I would agree that not everyone is aware of the exact failure rate of contraceptives, but that is their own fault, just like when someone has way too many drinks and drives home because "I'm OK" (which, by the way, has a similar rate of success in that you normally do get home without getting arrested) eventually gets busted for drunk driving. In addition, while not everyone knows the stastistics, they all know that contraceptives do fail (nobody is that stupid because we have all heard about someone for whom they did fail), they just think it won't happen to them.

Nola,
"There is no disagreement among reasonable persons about whether a "lump of cells" as you put it is a distinct, unique, living organism of the genus and species homo sapiens"

I believe there are plenty of reasonable people who would disagree that seconds after conception that the 'lump of cells' could be considered a 'distinct' organism.

Stukus - You bring a few distinct points. First you argue that we should kill people so they don't have a "crappy life" as you put it. Does this extend to those who are already born? What about the 6-month old whom the parents have decided is too much of a burden? And anyway, did you bother to ask the person you are killing if they would like to either be killed or have a potentially crappy life? Obviously not, because they never got to the point where they could be consulted.

On your second point about miscarriages, we don't prosecute parents when their babies die of SIDS right now. People are not prosecuted when other people die of natural causes.

On your third point about cost, are you actually saying that we should kill people so that they don't cost society some money? I just want to make sure, because you can say that if you want, but there are some ramifications to that. For instance, what about people already on the public dole? Should we just kill them off to save some money? Or because of the fact that they managed to get through the birth canal, are they now safe? That is the natural outgrowth of this argument.

Finally, chimps (and any other animal) are not people. People are in a class that is distinct from everything else.

DingleberryJones - While it is possible that we are not yet a fully "alive" organism two seconds after the sperm makes its way into the egg, at some point not too long thereafter a distinct (as in has its own DNA and is alive) organism of our genus and species is clearly present. By the time someone would be getting around to getting an abortion, it is abundantly clear that they are killing a living member of homo sapiens.

Well if we're going to engage in human chauvinism, then we've abandoned reason. People are special period. Did you ask chimpanzees whether they think humans are in a class distinct from everything else? How about gorillas or bonobos? You know, animals that you could literally speak to if you bothered enough.

I agree with Octavious, though, this obviously isn't going to get anywhere.

Nola, not to belabor the point, but I think you are seeing this too much from your own side. I think it is perfectly acceptable for 'reasonable' people to NOT view a 1 week only fetus as a 'distinct' life, regardless of the presence of DNA. While you may not agree with that view, do you really feel it is 'unreasonable' to have it? Are you that conceited in your beliefs?

DingleberryJones - Can you find any science whatsoever that supports your point of view? I am stating a biological fact, not my own opinion. Individual bacteria in your bloodstream are distinct organisms and you would not disagree with me here (I don't think you would at least), so how can you argue that a complex, multicelluar organism that is growing is not a distinct organism? Your argument frankly makes no sense whatsoever, but you continue it to justify your own position.

"By the time someone would be getting around to getting an abortion, it is abundantly clear that they are killing a living member of homo sapiens. "

Again, I believe it is possible that MANY MANY reasonable people getting abortions at 4 weeks would disagree with this. Just because you have decided what you believe that mean you get to define what 'reasonable' is.

I am NOT justifying my position. I don't believe I have stated my position. I have just disagreed about with your declaring what is 'reasonable'.