Abortion - Political Forum

Troianii · 02-18-2007, 11:50 AM

CNN.com - Abortion returns to high court's docket - Nov 30, 2005

I find that the very idea of abortion sends a message about society. Many people view children as a burden rather than as a blessing. Society has slowly become more individualistic and moved away from the importance of the family unit. I think that it's a big problem, from low marriage rates (just under 50% of U.S. adults are married, from memory), to high divorce rates, to poor parenting, to lack of education, to alcohol, drugs, and so on.

However, on the issue of abortion I think that the legality of it comes down to whether the unborn child is considered a human life or not. Scientifically, there is almost universal consent (at least among scientists) that human life begins at conception. I think that you have to find something that you can use to measure the beginning of life that you can also use to measure the end of life, i.e. heart beat and brain waves. The human heart beat can be detected 14 days after gestation, brain waves 6 weeks after.

I'm very interested to see what opinions you will bring and what reasons you will use.

Troianii · 02-18-2007, 11:55 AM

This is the Supreme Court docket on abortion

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Brother Oz · 02-18-2007, 01:47 PM

It does not necessarily depend on when the foetus is considered alive. We have no compunction in killing animals, plants, etc, and they are alive. Personally, I would say that a person's life as a person, as opposed to basically a vegetable, would be when their brain starts working, which is I believe at about 2 weeks.

presluc · 02-18-2007, 03:14 PM

Not that I'm avoiding the discussion on when true life begins frankly I don't know.
I do have other questions reguarding this subject.
If a woman or a teenager doesn't want to have a baby how do you think it will be treated if saved by the government, say with a single parent or drug addiction at birth?
I seem to hear a lot of talk about saving the baby, not so much about saving the child from hunger, neglect, gangs, poverty,drugs,uneducaed,unskilled and other things.
It is my opinion that you should be qualified to become a parent thus you must want to keep your baby.
Making babies is the easy part getting up the next day and the day after, thats whats hard, I speak from experience of cource.
I support Abortion and pro choice, and before the government bans these, perhaps they should do something about education, health care,better paying jobs, gangs, drugs,maybe do something about the children already living on the streets,not to mention child molestors that prey on the innocents.

choclosteve · 02-18-2007, 04:09 PM

Hi- Interesting that the survey came up 50/50. I would have preferred that the survey would have allowed me to say yes to more than one answer. As to the question of when life begins- I find it akin to figuring out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I think that we could all agree that we would rather see fewer abortions, and if that is so, the discussion should be about how we are most likely to see fewer abortions. I think that if we want to see fewer abortions, our efforts should be focussed on sex education, including safe sex and easy access to condoms which offer the additional benefit of providing the next best protection from sexually transmitted diseases to abstinence, which we know is not a practice that is going to be followed by all of us. No child deserves to be born to parents who are not ready to be good parents

Brother Oz · 02-18-2007, 06:25 PM

The area with the lowest abortions is western Europe, while the one with the most is eastern Europe. Within eastern Europe, I think Belgium has the lowest abortion rate. They have a solid welfare state, and they teach sex education from 5. But by this I don't mean they teach kids about sex. What they do, is they start off with teaching them about friendship, how you should stick with your friends, and this slowly mutates into you sticking with your partner. Birth control is easily accessible.
I think the main factors for abortions are, obviously, how much unprotected sex people have, but also how easy life is for a young single mother.

choclosteve · 02-18-2007, 07:38 PM

Good info Oz, and life is almost never easy for the young single mother, but there are a number of countries that do a better job of helping single mothers than US, and most if not all of them have lower rates of abortion without prohibition. So, if we want to have fewer abortions, we should look at what works, and it is not prohibition or ignorance- remember that abortion was illegal in US until California Governor Reagon signed the first US abortion rights law.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary · 02-18-2007, 07:57 PM

I think abortion is a really complicated issue. The biggest real issue here is for teenages who get pregnant and don't want a baby. If you have a baby and you are a teenager, I think that your life is really finished to a large degree. Forget about going to college and getting a career. Now your career is a parent. I think it is kind of a cruel fate to a teenager that basically their life's ambition is over, due to a moment of passion.

On the other hand, I think it is totally unacceptable for a pregnancy to be allowed to go on, when one knows they are very likely to have a child. For things to get to the point where you have a fetus that has to be physically killed in some manner. As opposed to just taking a pill to kill a zygote. When you actually have a fetus developing and you have to kill that in order to get your abortion, that's fucked up and wrong.

I would say that is not too unreasonable if a child is aborted as soon as it becomes evident to the mother. I don't know how old that would make the zygote. I would assume somewhere around a month or less.

choclosteve · 02-18-2007, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neorealist234

I am part of a small minority of people, who are indifferent on this issue.

I don't really care that much about this issue...there are far more pressing things than this IMHO.

I hope I never have to deal with an abortion decision with a sexual partner or family member.

I hope that you and everybody else does not have to deal with the abortion issue, since when we get to that point. we have failed, and prohibiting abortion is not going to help. Whenever I see a teenager with child I think how sad that she has trapped herself in a life of struggle and that the child is being parented
by another child, and I wonder if she had received any good sex education at school or home

Izzibeth · 02-18-2007, 10:12 PM

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that education (among other things) is a huge factor in preventing a large number of abortions. I am for the woman's right to choose in this issue, but I do like to see a kind of time limit on the choice that will be made. However, that being said, if a time limit is in place then I also like to see the government and the rest of the society step up to put in place programs and adoption services that allow women who have carried to term but do not want to raise their child the option of giving the baby up for adoption and knowing that the child will have a chance a decent life. I think the United States fails miserably in this regard.