If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
I realise this may come down in the end to if you consider a feotus as a person, or at least as a holder of a person's rights or not. To me, this is the crux of the debate tbh. I guess I generally do, but since I'm not completely decided on this point, this is the starting point of my confusion I guess.
I am a complete pacifist even to the point where I would not deliberately harm a plant or insect unless I absolutely have to, so in general I don't think I'd ever have an abortion myself. However, I don't think anybody is in the right to judge somebody's actions unless they have been through exactly the same life experiences and know what's going through that person's head.
For example, a young woman may be mentally unfit to have children, or financially unable to keep them so in her eyes, it is more compassionate not to bring the child in to the world. Therefor abortion is an act of compassion, not a brutal horrible act of murder as some would have you believe. Then there's the case of drug addicts where the child could be born a coke-head, or there's an issue where it could kill the mother, or where the child would be born in agony.
I've never had an abortion, but I can't ever imagine that people go to have one and walk out without feeling some amount of guilt, or uncomfortable about it. So I think calling it a 'murder' is disregarding a lot of surrounding factors and the notion that each case is individual. After all, who are we to judge unless we've experienced it ourselves?
The baby is not an independent life-form until it is born.
Until then, the mother is boss, and the mother gets to choose.
It's not a contradictory position for those of us who don't believe that abortion is murder.
To answer the question, I am pro-choice in general, but if my wife was to have an abortion without telling me or against my wishes it would destroy our marriage.
Telling it like it is :thumb:
And that's the crux of it really. Either you agree with that statement, or you don't
How can you disagree with the statement ? :chin:
He said 'independant".
Take a cancer patient away from life-support, and they will certainly die, so is it an independent life-form?
No. What do you think life-support means ?
I can be very practical. I may be totally against abortion, but it's not fair to deny it to other women, especially as all that will happen is they'll have it done in a dirty back alley with a rusty coat-hanger, endangering themselves in the process.
However, it remains to be that what kermit started out with is where the views are divergent. And people genuinely believe that as soon as you have conceived a child, it is real, and separate, even if it needs help to survive, this is mostly religious. But that doesn't make it less valid, plenty of atheists hold the view as well based on their own moral inclinations.
Essentially, no-one really approves of abortion, it's a not very nice way to have to deal with a situation that should be covered in joy. The difference is whether you agree with the choice, or if you think abortion should be banned.
As far as I'm concerned, the choice makes much more sense. If you don't want an abortion, as you rightly say, don't have one, but it is no-one's place to judge the woman who wants or needs one.
Out of curiosity, why? I can understand not wanting one yourself, but what is it to you if other women have abortions?
Then there's monitoring women during their pregnancies to ensure optimum foetal health. Cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate, sugar, too much fat etc.?
Ain't just limited to abortion, but most of the lifers forget that.
When I was writing my dissertation, my tutor showed me this fantastic quote about how pregnancy turns your body into a public telephone box where strangers feel like they can come in and say whatever they want etc. *wouldn't appreciate unwanted advice during pregnancy*
I take it they were thinking the babies would have died, in which case its tricky, but at the point of labour - blimey, If they dont have rights at that stage, its tricky. I do see what you mean though, but without knowing the full story its hard to comment too much.
I can't remember why the hospital insisted, while deliveries of multiples are difficult, I don't think there was an immediate physical risk like eclampsia that warrented a section. I just find it very uncomfortable reading knowing that the couple didn't even know that the hospital were applying for a court order.
There was a case a few years ago where a woman in the US was charged with murder for refusing a c-section. Caused uproar, charges were later dropped, but because it was the US, didn't surprise me.
There's a book by Rachel Roth called 'Making women pay, the hidden cost of foetal rights' and it documents all those cases.
Wait, we care? I thought it was because we got huge amounts of arousal from being killrrz
I think that the story about the african couple you mentioned is also dodgy and weird that shes more worried about any subsequent children she may have, than the threee babies she was about to deliver. The story does smack to me of being racist though and they would have been less likely to do that to a white person, but then again, it is America and they seem a lot more anti pregnant women in favour of the baby, than UK people in general.