I think steering the argument towards the necessity for birth control (or rather, contraceptives) is obfuscating the issue. People will be people, and people are generally stupid. Nevertheless, I think I should clarify exactly what circumstances I’m thinking about: I’m thinking about the young girl who faces the choice between having a life or a child. THAT is the issue I’d like to see resolved.
Now, from there you’ll find variations of the question. What about rape victims who’re made pregnant by their attacker? What about children that are so deformed (hydroencephallic, for example) that they’ll most likely live a very short time and with no possibility of being more than a vegetable and, additionally, prevent the mother from having any more children? There are complexities and extenuating circumstances, as with all things. I guess by then I’ve also gone off into the sunset with my argument.
Almost every vote he’s made is anti-choice. I don’t really care if a candidate doesn’t favour an all-out ban, when every vote they make further cuts off the possibility of choice. Repealing Roe v. Wade would mean to ban it in most red states. This doesn’t matter that much to rich women, who can always fly somewhere to do it, if they really need it, but it hangs poor women out to dry.
Supports repealing Roe v. Wade. (May 2007)
Voted YES on barring HHS grants to organizations that perform abortions. (Oct 2007)
Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Apr 2007)
Voted YES on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
Voted YES on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus during other crime. (Mar 2004)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions except for maternal life. (Mar 2003)
Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)
Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)
Expand embryonic stem cell research. (Jun 2004)
Rated 75% by the NRLC, indicating a mixed record on abortion. (Dec 2006)
The wonderful thing about pro-choice is that most of the people here discussing this topic are males who will never, and should never make this choice.
How about we shut up and leave the choice to the people whose lives are going to be affected most by abortions? Women.
There isn’t an argument and never was. The pro-life side needs to prove that abortion is wrong in order for it to be illegal. If they can’t do that, it shouldn’t be. Pretty simple. Nothing is going to change thir minds if their minds are made up based on nothing - trying to convince them is a waste of time, not to mention beside the point.
Just because men aren’t biologically required to deal with the issue of pregnancy doesn’t mean they don’t have moral obligations and legal rights in the matter.
If the guy runs away and refuses to take responsibility, then the reality is that there is only so much they can be forced to do. However, if they take responsibility then their opinions should matter.
I’ll point this out again: Third trimester abortions pretty much don’t happen except in extreme circumstances. Late term abortions are a tiny, tiny percentage of the total. (1.4% of abortions in the US occur at or after 21 weeks, Wikipedia claims.)
People don’t get late term abortions because they suddenly woke up in the morning and decided they didn’t want a kid after all. They get them because there’s a good chance that they will die if they don’t.
I disagree. Unless you want to stop making it murder if you kill an unborn child through other means. For example, in many points, if I give the old Falcon Punch to a pregnant woman and it causes her to miscarry, it is murder, and I am chargeable with that crime.
If it is murder to destroy a fetus, embryo, baby, whatever the hell you want to call it, you are killing a human. We don’t call it murder unless that’s the case. It is a crime (or at least it was when I was last in law school) to intentionally kill an unborn child.
So, much like other defenses to murder, such as self-defense, act of passion that converts it from murder to manslaughter, etc., we need to either recategorize the crimes that are murder involving fetuses (only mothers may choose to murder their own child), or explain why when a doctor goes in with a vacuum, it’s okay.
I’m actually fine with it, but I also can call a spade a spade and not delude myself as to what it is legally.
Well? All that shows is that the law is all messed up in some places. I mean, it’s obviously wrong to assault a woman and cause her to miscarry - but it’s not a crime comparable to first degree murder except maybe in a few fucked up places. In some places abortion is legal, in others it’s not. I don’t know if there are any places where it’s considered murder 1, but I know there are a lot of people who see it as such. And they’re dumb.
It’s a crime, but it’s not murder. It’s human, but it’s not a human being. It’s a crime to strangle a kitten with a shoelace or set a dog on fire, but hundreds of thousands are legally killed each year. Same deal.
Do laws in some places need to be fixed? Uh … yes?
Yeah, I really don’t think that’s what you’re doing.
No, I very clearly am. There is no question about it, it is logically correct.
But you have one of the right answers - if you think the laws that exist are incorrect, and that intentionally causing a pregnant woman to miscarry should not be chargeable as murder, then that is a logical way out of the conundrum. I can respect saying that the laws in those areas need to be changed.
People don’t get late term abortions because they suddenly woke up in the morning and decided they didn’t want a kid after all. They get them because there’s a good chance that they will die if they don’t.
I support genetic hygiene through mandatory negative eugenics, so, like Margaret Sanger, I’m pro-abortion but kind of ambivalent about the choice part. I went to wikipedia to look at your numbers, and right under those statistics is this:
In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute collected questionnaires from 1,900 women in the United States who came to clinics to have abortions. Of the 1,900, 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. These 420 women were asked to choose among a list of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. The results were as follows:
* 71% Woman didn't recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
* 48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
* 33% Woman was afraid to tell her partner or parents
* 24% Woman took time to decide to have an abortion
* 8% Woman waited for her relationship to change
* 8% Someone pressured woman not to have abortion
* 6% Something changed after woman became pregnant
* 6% Woman didn't know timing is important
* 5% Woman didn't know she could get an abortion
* 2% A fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy
* 11% Other
Again, women have been very kind to me, so I’m not gonna begrudge them one or five abortions. In fact, if women decide they want access to some kind of prenatal disciplinary surgery that just roughs the fetus up a little without actually killing it, I’m all for that too. But I’m going to have to see more numbers before I believe the vast majority of late term abortions are self defense.
No, at least 37 states, according to that source. Even if they did get them all, 37 out of 50 certainly is not much to crow about in support of an argument that it is trivial.
The law needs to be reconciled in this area - I would prefer that it be reconciled by getting rid of the laws making it murder to cause “feticide” (as the site describes it).
I’m glad you answered your own question (even though your question was more of a “yes” or “no” one). I for one was wondering who should have the choice to decide if they can choose, and it turns out it’s women.
You should think about this a little more, Brendan.
The law doesn’t need to be reconciled for shit. Roe v. Wade was a constitutional decision, if some overzealous Alabama prosecutor actually tries to extend fetal murder laws to the point that they infringe on it, they’ll be struck down* as overbroad.
*Yes, Alito’s on the bench now, so maybe not. But assume the judiciary is prefectly consistent for the sake of argument.
