Abortion

[emmapresley]

i would personally sum up my view on this whole debate by agreeing with your last sentence sniv.

..all situations are different as all individuals are..and i don't think anyone has the right to judge cos you aren't walking in that persons shoes

[**Ames**]

i would personally sum up my view on this whole debate by agreeing with your last sentence sniv.

..all situations are different as all individuals are..and i don't think anyone has the right to judge cos you aren't walking in that persons shoes

Same here. You all know by now how I feel LOL. I do not agree with it in all circumstances, neither do I think it should not be available.

Oh and Frank - I know it's not personal! I never intended it to be either . . . just a good old fashioned debate :D

[Frank]

Oh and Frank - I know it's not personal! I never intended it to be either . . . just a good old fashioned debate :D

We actually agree on something ;)

[sandra]

[quote=snivelingchild;475795]24 weeks is 6 months!!!!! Find me a doctor who will perform that where the life of the mother is not in danger! We are talking about the first freakin trimester here!! Anyone who has an abortion not for medical reasons at 24 weeks should be slapped in the face!

Sandra, I'm sorry, but does that mean poor people can't have sex, since they can't afford the consequences? Or should they have to survive working pregnant and then filling up the system with babies for adoption, which in my opinion, is a horrible thing.
quote]


I think you'll find that abortion is carried out at 24 weeks and has in most cases nothing to do with the mother's life being in danger.

As I've said before..............I'm not going to change other people's views on abortion so all I can do is state my own views. I'm not saying everyone has to agree with me, I'm just saying that for me a baby once created has a right to life..........that's all. I don't want to play God and decide who can be born full term and who can't.
Once again I'm bowing out of this discussion.............just as I'll never change some omnivores beliefs that it's ok to kill animals I'll never change some people's beliefs that it's ok to have abortions.

[dreama]

The baby in the womb IS a baby. It's a living feeling being. Since killing living feeling beings is normally considered murder then I don't see anything wrong in using these terms. No I would NEVER consider someone who is in favor of abortion as pro choice because when you murder someone you take that choice away.

I'm all for a woman's right to do what she wants with HER body but the baby inside her is NOT part of her. It's a seperate being. What about a woman's right to have both her legs amputated because she suffers from BIID. On another site this woman is very much Pro abortion etc etc... but has apsolutely no respect for someone who needs to have their legs amputation. She isn't killing anyone. She just has a condition where she fels she needs to lose her legs. Similar to people who are transexual. Anyway this pro abortion woman who's all for 'woman's rights' was VERY judgemental about that. So it seems that they are for a woman's rights to murder babies but not any other bodily rights which I think is wrong.

I'm not being judgemental but MURDER is MURDER. If I wasn't against murder I wouldn't be vegan in the first place.

[dreama]

I don't want to get involved in the abortion debate again but I just have to say I agree wholeheartedly with Frank!
I believe there are no grounds for abortion unless it's a choice between the life of the mother or the life of the child...........then there has to be a judgement made.
You should not have sex unless you are willing to take the consequences of having sex.........if that means getting pregnant............so be it.
It's disgusting that in one part of a hospital they are fighting frantically to save the lives of premature babies (around 24 weeks) while in another part of the same hospital they are cutting these babies into pieces and aborting them. To me that is madness and just signifies the deranged way human beings regard life..........animal and human.

Well said.

[sugarmouse]

Sorry to hear abot your experience, snivellingchild.:(

Wel, I was using contraception when I got pregnant. I was entrapped, by a man who wanted children and knew I didnt.
I took the morning after pill which didnt work. I aborted at 8weeks.
Poison ivy that is the kind of thig i mean,along with families that just dont seem to care about their children for wahtever reason, and for those children whojust arent looked after.

[dreama]

OK... I have some strong views on this subject, and am sorry if it offends anyone. It's not my intent, but I do feel really strongly about the ethics... so I'm sorry if I offend.

For one, I don't like the way terms are used. It seems that the doublespeak is taken to Orwellian levels. People against abortion are anti-abortion and pro-abortion are pro-abortion. Anti abortion people aren't pro-life; some are... but being pro-life is much more than just being against abortion. A true pro-life person should be against meat eating, the death penalty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and everything else that demeans and cheapens life. Abortion is just one aspect.

Well I'm against all that as well as discrimination against the disabled too. So I'm deffinately Pro life although I know what you mean about some 'pro lifers'.



And abortion advocates aren’t' exactly anti-life, any more than meat eaters are anti-life. They are against life in one aspect, while anti-life implies they are Hell bent on the extermination of every living thing on the planet (which is kinda the point of using loaded terms, to add meaning). Likewise, anti-abortion advocates aren't anti-choice. They just don't think people should have that particular choice, not for the government to control every aspect of people's lives and preventing them from making any choices; anti-choice would imply preventing people from making any decisions. And, likewise, I sincerely hope no one is totally pro-choice, since there are some choices that people should not have (like the choice to commit rape, murder, or drive on the sidewalk while drinking a bottle of gin). Alright... got that off my chest.

True. I wouldn't call someone who is pro abortion Anti life. I just wouldn't agree to calling them 'pro choice'.

Now, as for abortion, I feel that falls under the choice people shouldn't have, since it's the choice to end a human life. Yes, it’s her body, but it doesn’t affect just her. Killing takes away all a person has and will ever have. I’m probably borrowing from a quote form Unforgiven here, but it fits. Abortion simply kills a person, makes it so that baby will never have a life, never know love, go to school, have friends, experience life… I could never in good conscious condone it. I don’t think the right to take away the baby’s life is one anybody should have. Just like my hand is part of my body, but I accept that I shouldn’t be allowed to randomly punch people in the face, since my right to do what I choose with my body doesn’t trump people’s rights to not be punched in the face.

Well said.

Beyond the opposition to the killing of the baby, I also don’t like the sexism inherent in abortion. What I mean is that abortion is so often a women’s issue, when men should have some say. The father is also a parent, yet his son or daughter could be killed without even his knowledge. I would feel horrible if my son or my daughter was killed and I could do nothing about it. Now, I also feel that responsibility is important. If a man gets a woman pregnant, even if contraception was used, he should take responsibility (and I am not alone; we have the term deadbeat dad to refer to fathers who decide they don’t want to be dads and skip out), but same goes for the mother. It’s simply not fair that one parent has all the choice regarding to keep the baby, yet both are responsible. And of course, rape brings up another aspect, since there the mother had no choice. I would say that the baby should be born, since he or she is no less deserving of life. Though, I also think in that situation there should be an additional crime, to charge the rapist with, since besides the act of rape, the rapist also is taking control of the woman’s body in forcing the baby upon her, which should carry additional penalty, as well as forcing him to pay child support. And while I’m not unsympathetic to the fact that it is a woman’s body being used to carry the baby, I feel that it’s the lesser of the two evils between that and killing someone.


Sorry for the rambling, but I had a lot to get off my chest.

I agree. I think there is some sexism here. I can see that even though I am female. But it would be quite traumatic for a senitive guy who actually WANTED the baby only to have his girlfriend go and kill it. Although I've also heard of men who actually presurize their girlfriends into having an abortion because they can't be bothered with the responsiblity.

[bryzee86]

But the point is babies in the womb DO exist. So you are taking a life when you abort a baby.
A cancerous tumour exists, but I'd still want rid.

[dreama]

dreama i am horrified that you've been through that (rape), so sorry to hear that, appalling.

i think it should be MUCH easier to get sterilised on the NHS. I don't understand why they just don't make a rule that, should you wish to reverse the decision you have to pay for it privately. I think sterilisation should be encouraged.

Thanks Cobweb. It was especially difficult because the college refused to believe me. They actually accused 'ME' of geperdising my rapist's future. I also know the daughter of a friend who was raped and went to the police about it, was actually charged with wasting Police time because they didn't believe her either.

One way or another rape victims do carry around a lot of guilt. Which is why they shouldn't have to endure extra guilty of having killed their own child.

I do agree with you about steralization. That should be available on demand. People shouldn't even have to pay for it. Especially if they couldn't afford it. So they can have a sex life WITHOUT producing babies if they don't want that.

[bryzee86]

One way or another rape victims do carry around a lot of guilt. Which is why they shouldn't have to endure extra guilty of having killed their own child.


Nor should they have to be guilt-tripped or even forced into keeping a baby which is half a rapists.

[**Ames**]

We actually agree on something ;)

How boring is that! LOL

[snivelingchild]

Nor should they have to be guilt-tripped or even forced into keeping a baby which is half a rapists.

Exactly. Guilt is something dreama would feel, but everyone is different. Some people have abortions under very poor circumstances, usually where they were pressured and the decision was not their's. SOME women feel better, and report a sense of relief and a weight lifted off of their shoulders.

You cannot say that abortion makes all the women feel guilty, therefore it is bad. I am amazingly grateful that I didn't live in a country where it isn't allowed. I no longer feel guilty over what happened years ago. I feel empowered that I was able to take control of my life afterwards. If I'd had a child at 14, I'm not so sure I'd have had the strength to recover in such a way.

[snivelingchild]

No posts for 12 hours??? ....do do do do, do do do do.....You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!

[Twist Kick]

Sniveling, here’s a post since you’ve not had one in 12 hours or more~

What I’m about to type here may offend some of you with more delicate sensibilities, and if I do, I’m sorry, it’s not my intent to, but I feel very strongly about abortion. Be ye tempted to insult or flame me (although I know you all are an accepting lot, this is just something I feel it's necessary to say), please, refrain from doing do. This is my opinion, and although it is controversial and ‘out there’, I believe a big part of veganism is ‘live and let live’, in referring to one’s opinions.

That being said.. As for whether I’m pro-choice or pro-life.. I say.. neither.

I am pro-abortion.

Not anti-life (I wouldn’t be vegan if I was), but I’m pro-abortion unless the mother is mentally, emotionally, physically, and fiancially prepared to carry to term, give birth to, and then raise a child well.

Plain and simple. The facts are ugly: human population is at an extreme. Crime rates are high, teen pregnancy is soaring, children are being raised in worse and worse conditions, our orphancies are overflowing.

Before anyone brings it up, yes, I am aware that if that standard were applied, most of us would not be on this earth.

However, that, and questions like ‘What if you/your mother/an important historical figure had been aborted?’ make no sense. After all, I/my mom/said person are already here (or in the case of the historical figure, have been here and passed on) and no hypothetical situation will change that. If me/she/important person had indeed not been born, then what would it really matter? Life would go on, someone else would be here making this argument, someone else would have given birth to the someone else in my place, and someone else would have made the historically important event happen.
Likewise, ‘But the baby you abort could grow up and cure cancer!’ line is a fruitless questioning. Even if the baby would have, if you abort him/her, someone else will cure cancer. The baby you don’t abort may also grow up to be a serial rapist/murderer, and if you abort them, someone else will do it instead.

If you have a child, no matter how well you raise it, he or she could still go out into the world and do evil. Yes they could still do good, but most children are in the ‘3rd child of a 17-year-old with two siblings from different fathers, and being raised by their mother’s mother, because she didn’t have an abortion because she was lead to believe it was somehow wrong’ category, sadly. Most babies born today aren’t wanted, or are not in situations where they can be taken care of correctly.

Nature and nurter play equal roles, and it is both unfair to the world and unfair to the child to bring him or her into a world where he or she is not wanted.

Adoption is also an option I say, disconsider. Most children will spend their entire young lives bouncing from foster home to foster home, developing social issues and often being abused. When they get out at 18 years old, they have had no semblance of a childhood. The likelihood of them going out and doing good is sadly slim at best. So adoption is no kinder than keeping an unwanted child.

The sad fact is that having a child is necessarily selfish, just as much so as eating meat. You don’t need to reproduce to survive any more than you need meat to survive. If you wish to make an impact on society, adopt, and give some orphan a real life. It is not fair to the world at large to give birth to your own child, whether you wanted it, or whether you didn’t, and for some reason refused abortion.

We here obviously care about life, we’re vegans. But I disagree that an unborn fetus is a living being – yes it can feel, and yes it has a heartbeat and so on, but the fact is, it is not alive until it is born. Until then, it is a massive collection of cells, and later, a mass of flesh. The reason people hesitate at abortion is instinct drives you to want to protect that humanesque little ball of flesh.

Yes, I’m sure by now some of you are recoiled in horror, wondering what kind of a monster I must be, because my opinion is so... so OUT THERE. As in, off the edge of the map, here there be monsters OUT THERE/

And yes, I’m aware I will in all likelihood be flamed, insulted, nitpicked, possibly run off this forum, because my opinion goes so drastically against instinct..

But if we cannot accept all of our kin as being individuals, ‘strange’ opinions or not.. then how can we call ourselves open-minded?

So that’s it, there is how I feel laid out in black. Judge me as you will, but remember, I have the right to feel this way every bit as much as you have the right to feel any other way.

PS. No, I do not intend to ever have children. If I should someday greatly desire to be solely responsible (or jointly responsible, if I should have a companion) for the life, wellbeing and raising of another human, I will adopt.

PPS. Yes, I am for the death penalty. Those that have commited crimes which carry a life-in-prison or death penalty sentence, once they have been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, deserve nothing less than humane euthanization.

PPPS. No, I am not against life. If I were, I would be a serial killer, not a vegan. I simply believe that any child brought into this world deserves to be born and raised in a household that wants to and is capable of raising him or her.

[dreama]

A cancerous tumour exists, but I'd still want rid.

So pro abortion people are compairing live human beings to cancer now. Oh dear!

Since when have cancer cells had their own nervous system?

[dreama]

Adoption is also an option I say, disconsider. Most children will spend their entire young lives bouncing from foster home to foster home, developing social issues and often being abused. When they get out at 18 years old, they have had no semblance of a childhood. The likelihood of them going out and doing good is sadly slim at best. So adoption is no kinder than keeping an unwanted child.



I totally disagree. Those that end up going through foster homes are usually quite old. I think that people prefere to adopt babies so a healthy baby would have a very good chance of having a good home. So if I ever got raped again I would deffinately have the baby adopted.

[bryzee86]

So pro abortion people are compairing live human beings to cancer now. Oh dear!

Who said I am "pro abortion people".

I am a "pro-abortion person", but my views don't represent anyone but me.

[Poison Ivy]

I totally disagree. Those that end up going through foster homes are usually quite old. I think that people prefere to adopt babies so a healthy baby would have a very good chance of having a good home. .

Don't you think that's a bit of a problem if babies stand a better chance of having a good home than all the thousands of older children ALREADY in care that would get overlooked in preference for a baby?....it's the human equivalent to all the older dogs and cats in rescues all over the world that get left there because people prefer puppies and kittens.

Adding babies/puppies/kittens to an already overcrowded care/rescue system is just irresponsible and does NOTHING to help those already there, it just perpetuates the problem and lessens the chances of those already here getting a new home.

[snivelingchild]

yes it can feel, and yes it has a heartbeat and so on

Not in the first 8 weeks. Even the most conservative estimates do not place the cell contractions that are similar to heartbeat before a heart exists before 8 weeks. There are also no complex nerves or spinal cord. Simply put, I don't believe it can suffer before 8 weeks.

With things like this, I believe they deserve the basic respect for being life (meaning it should not be killed carelessly or without thought), but not of such worth that they deserve consideration over more advanced forms of life.

I'm also for abortions of cats and dogs where suitable. I've had friends with dogs with whom birth would be very risky, and the surgery to remove them was safer.

[Twist Kick]

I totally disagree. Those that end up going through foster homes are usually quite old. I think that people prefere to adopt babies so a healthy baby would have a very good chance of having a good home. So if I ever got raped again I would deffinately have the baby adopted.

Yes, some babies get adopted, but not all of them, and even if every single baby got a home, does that mean the 5-,7-,13-,16-year olds don't deserve homes too simply because they're not tiny, helpless, and able to switch on our instinct to protect them?

Frankly, I blame religion for the whole 'unborn babies have rights to life' thing. Religions tend to push anything that gives them more control over their subjects. It's sad, but even today in even the more liberal areas, those ideas still hang around like a blanketing fog that the sun still hasn't burned off.

[harpy]

I don't see anything wrong with bringing up a child conceived in a rape if the woman wants to do it, and I can understand why they might. Unless you think all behaviour is genetically determined then there's no reason to think the child would grow up to be a rapist, or equivalent. Good things can happen as a result of bad things.

But I certainly don't think women should be forced to give birth to the child of a rape (or any other) - I think they should have the choice. That's why I tend to say I'm 'pro choice' rather than 'pro abortion', but if the alternative is to be 'pro life' then I'm certainly 'pro abortion'.

In practice (as I'm sure has been discussed earlier in the thread) there have always been abortions, even before it was legal, so the real question to me is whether we have legal, relatively safe abortions or illegal and unsafe ones. I would certainly be in favour of making abortions unnecessary as far as possible, e.g. by sex education, by contraceptive provision, and by providing financial help and social support for single parents to bring up children if they want to.

[Twist Kick]

That's just the problem, though, Harpy. Things like endless welfare for kids (and we've all heard the horror stories of girls who have 8 children because they get a huge check every month for them), the social acceptance of having endless kids, the overhanging religion threatening eternal damnation on you should you abort.

Frankly my real issue with raising the child of a rape is that one, it suggests less than good things about the woman (she's weak, she's insane, she enjoyed it, she condones rape), and two, no matter how good of intentions, unless the woman is a damn saint, she will at some point likely hate the child, and just one misspoken phrase ('I wish I'd aborted you!') can scar a kid for life. That isn't fair to the woman, and it certianly isn't fair to the kid, and definetly less fair than an abortion.

Because, beleive it or not kiddies, an unborn baby that's aborted dosn't know it's been aborted. It dosn't KNOW anything. It's not a living being. If it was going to change the world, no one would know because it wasn't born. If it was going to grow up and be a serial killer, again, no one would know because it wasn't born. There's two sides of the same coin: the child you abort could grow up and go against everything you believe in, or be a good person, and you never know which it would be.

When it comes to adding another human to the overburdened earth, a flip of the coin is NOT a suitable vehicle for deciding what to do. Abortion results in nothing bad. Adoption results in bad, indirectly. Keeping the baby can result in horrific bad, and that's a chance that is really just too big to risk on the ridiculous conception that a bundle of nerves and muscles (or, if correctly aborted in the first trimester, a bundle of cells) has a RIGHT to life, more than another living, breathing being.

It's just a complete shame. Honestly, I find it kinda disheartening to see such beliefs still exist in highly forward areas like this. This is my harsh opinion, but you'd think intelligent people who make a choice to make such a change in the world by going vegan, would have beaten strange and spurious ideas like abortion being 'wrong' somehow.

Anyone else seen Dumbocracy? If people keep breeding like rabbits (and they do), that will be the future. Be afraid.

[harpy]

we've all heard the horror stories of girls who have 8 children because they get a huge check every month for them

I'm highly sceptical about those stories, but even if there is the odd case like that it's a price that I think society should be prepared to pay for trying to ensure that every child has a reasonable standard of living.

It's the threats I'm unhappy about, not the cheques - no-one should feel forced to give birth.

[Twist Kick]

If they only paid for the first child, perhaps young women would consider abortion more often.

Even if it isn't intentional, picture this:

20-year-old-girl, no college, barely graduated high school, working at McDonalds: Aw hell, I'm pregnant again! What am I gonna do?
3 other children: Huh?
20-year-old: Huh, well, I get welfare checks for all of ya'll.. I guess one more baby can't hurt. Not like I'll really have to pay for him/her.

Yes it's not intentional, but it makes it much easier to say 'Eh, I'll just have the baby' when you'll get even more money.

As for feeling forced to give birth, that, again, I blame squarely on religion and the right-wing. It's a matter of having control over the most-susceptable people: young women who are pregnant. It's a terrifiying aspect if you didn't plan it, and it makes them extremely easy to be pushed around and told what to do.

Sadly, in a lot of cultures in the USA (anyone else see the 'Pregnancy Pact' some twenty teenagers went in to?) say it's perfectly okay to have lots of children (ie, Hispanics and African-Americans for example), or it's not okay to abort an unborn child because of social stigma.

That's a real shame. For the exact same reasons, they have kids even if they don't want them, eat meat because if they didn't they'd be stigmatized by their families and friends, they do drugs because their peers do, ecetera ecetera ecetera.