Is abortion better than the alternative?

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

tawny said:
Very true, Abstinence is 100% foolproof, but sadly humans aren't. I admire someone who can abstain, keep themselves for marriage and marriage only, but not all have or can.

Since more than half of the pregnancies each year are unplanned, it sounds like finding out you're unexpectedly pregnant isn't a problem limited to people outside of marriage.

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

Voodoo Gypsy said:
It doesn't to any woman on this board who's on birth control. But I'm glad you asked me to look it up. According to the people that know, the pill is only 92% effective so out of 5 million women, 400,000 of them will get pregnant.

By the way, in the US right now there are 10.7 million women on the pill. That's 856,000 pregnancies.

Green Man · Mar 7, 2005

Voodoo Gypsy said:
It doesn't to any woman on this board who's on birth control. But I'm glad you asked me to look it up. According to the people that know, the pill is only 92% effective so out of 5 million women, 400,000 of them will get pregnant.

What you should have said here is 400,000 women stand a higher probability of getting pregnant.

http://www.plannedparenthood.com/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/pub-contraception-pill.xml

Keep in mind that information is not up to date as recent studies have shown that for up to 20% of women the pill might be completely ineffective. Studies have shown that women who have moderate to severe hormonal problems have the hormonal problems corrected while on birth control, so their ability to get pregnant isn't only unhampered, but it's actually easier to get pregnant.

My wife was on the pill for a couple of years to straighten out her period,so I'm a little familiar with that end of things.It didnot make it easier to get pregnant.It only put her back on the proper schedule so to speak.

So is having your sexual organs lopped off, but neither one are especially practical now are they?

Let's not go to such painful extremes,shall we?

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

Green Man said:
Let's not go to such painful extremes,shall we?

Way to ignore the point, but I agree, abstinence is a painful extreme.

Green Man · Mar 7, 2005

Voodoo Gypsy said:
Way to ignore the point, but I agree, abstinence is a painful extreme.

Lopping off body parts is a painful extreme.Abstinence is a state people can become accustomed to.

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

Green Man said:
Lopping off body parts is a painful extreme.Abstinence is a state people can become accustomed to.

Again, the point goes right over your head. Both are insanely unpractical.

Rae · Mar 7, 2005

those who choose abstinance are doing something unhealthy.
--Hm. Depends on how you define abstinence, I think, Sally. AV has a point IF it means that abstinence = no sexual release. IIRC, if men don't have sexual release, their chances of prostate cancer goes up.

However, if your definition of abstinence = no sexual release with 1 or more partners, then you're right and he's wrong.

Just wanted to clarify so people didn't get their feelings hurt. If it doesn't work...um, ignore what I said. Pay no attention to that Rae behind the curtain!

You can live without sex;
--If this were a different site, I might debate that.

The thinking of "because we are sexual creatures, waiting for sex until ready is bad" is folly.
--I agree with this. People should wait until they are ready, and there should be better education about what waiting means. IIRC Sweden does a good job of educating its young people about sex, and their average age of first sexual experience is far higher than ours in the U.S. (What was it...17 rather than 13? Can anyone help me out here?)

BTW, I got pregnant while on the pill.

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

Rae said:
BTW, I got pregnant while on the pill.

I know half a dozen people who got pregnant on the pill. It's not nearly as uncommon as one would think. According to about.com, the actual effectiveness of the pill is around 87%, and this was updated 2 weeks ago. 10.7 million women use the pill, that's 1,391,000.

The two most popular forms of birth control are condoms and the pill and the best guestimate for couples who use condoms I could find was 12 million. With an effective rate of 85%, that's 1,800,000.

Just between the pill and condoms, that's almost 3.2 million unplanned pregnancies, more than three times the number of people who have HIV in the US. And HIV is considered to be an epidemic.

Green Man · Mar 7, 2005

Voodoo Gypsy said:
I know half a dozen people who got pregnant on the pill. It's not nearly as uncommon as one would think. According to about.com, the actual effectiveness of the pill is around 87%, and this was updated 2 weeks ago. 10.7 million women use the pill, that's 1,391,000.

The two most popular forms of birth control are condoms and the pill and the best guestimate for couples who use condoms I could find was 12 million. With an effective rate of 85%, that's 1,800,000.

Just between the pill and condoms, that's almost 3.2 million unplanned pregnancies, more than three times the number of people who have HIV in the US. And HIV is considered to be an epidemic.

HIV is not a good analogy.People die from AIDS needlessly.

That's 3.2 million women with an increased chance of pregnancy.It doesn't mean there will be an additional 3.2 million babies.BTW,unplanned does not mean unwanted.

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

Green Man said:
HIV is not a good analogy.People die from AIDS needlessly.

I'm not comparing HIV to unplanned pregnancies. I'm pointing out that when we have 950,000 people with HIV in the US, we have charities and fundraisers to help out. When 3.2 people get pregnant off of birth control (who's job is by the way to prevent pregnancies), nobody bats an eye. In fact, some people call it a hazard of having sex and try to remove one of the options that would correct this oversight/problem: abortion.

I just find it ironic that people like you say that people die from AIDS "needlessly," intentionally or unintentionally implying that the 3.2 women who get pregnant accidentally each year had it coming. I guess that you completely forget that for a large majority of people the same accident that causes unplanned pregnancy also causes HIV.

That's 3.2 million women with an increased chance of pregnancy.It doesn't mean there will be an additional 3.2 million babies.

No it doesn't mean there are 3.2 million babies. I think 1.2 million will be aborted, which incidentally lines up pretty well with the statistic that says around 60% of women getting abortions were on birthcontrol when they got pregnant.

BTW,unplanned does not mean unwanted.

Who said it did?

Phred · Mar 7, 2005

The cause of abortion is not sex. The cause of abortion is a woman feeling that her life would be better without a child than with. Until you address this issue, you aren't helping. All the talk in the world about abstinence is completely useless to a woman who's already pregnant. Yapping about who's to blame for the preganancy is even worse. The anti-abortionists here would suggest that the way to help a skydiver whose parachute won't open is to tell him what a fool he was for jumping.

You wanna help prevent abortions? Stop stigmatizing sex. When a 16 year-old walks into your church pregnant... how many of you immediately shake your heads and condemn her? Tell me how that helps? How is her life going to be better with a child than without? You don't have to convince me, you have to convince her. If you think that shoving "consequences" in her face at this point helps, you're wrong.

Abortion will never be completely stopped. Get used to that fact right now. It can happen in the light of day or in back alleys... In the harsh light of reality, there are choices to be made. Fantasies about abstinence are irrelevant. Sex isn't going to be stopped either.

It honestly makes me wonder what anti-abortionists hope to accomplish. From the actions I read here it seems that the goal isn't saving kids, it's punishing people. And that's just not helping...

.

snowydc2003 · Mar 7, 2005

Excellent point phred,abortion will always have a place in society whether we like it or not.

There needs to be more discussion on the prevention of pregnancy in schools and i don't just mean abstinence, all avenues should be explored as for some abstinence just isn't going to work whereas for others it seems fine.

Personally I used to have no problem with abortion as i thought that a foetus should not be classed as a child but since having a child of my own i feel different about it. BUT even though my heart says that it is wrong, my head is still totally pro choice, it seems very unfair to wish to take that option away from people after all everyone is entitled to make mistakes.

I have known some people who have had to make that choice and it is no way an easy choice to make but it is right because they made an informed choice.

I am just eternally thankful that it is a choice i have never had to make.

Don't make an extremely diffiucult choice worse by condemning those who have to make it

ASLER86 · Mar 7, 2005

Lokisdottir said:
As though there aren't already enough children being bounced from one foster home to another? You make it sound so simple.

Most children lingering in one foster home to another are older children who were removed from their home because of abuse or neglect. There are LONG waiting lists of couples wanting to adopt a newborn.

ASLER86 · Mar 7, 2005

Electra said:
I find muself really amazed by how people think. Then I get amazed at how i still get amazed by people's way of thinking.

You want to ban abortion, so you would let a woman who is raped bring a child into the world, which every time she looks she will remember how she was violated, you would let a woman who has serious health problems not have an abortion and die, you would let seriously deformed child be born into this world that would have no life of any quality.

I know a mother who was raped and who kept her child. He is now a healthy, happy four year old boy.
Seriously deformed child??? what's your definition of a deformed child? Deaf? blind? cerebral palsy? downs syndrome? The list could go on and on....
Do you believe in mercy killings?

I have a cousin who is special needs. He is eleven, he can't speak, and he functions at a level of a preschooler and he will most likely never live on his own. should he have been aborted and died? I love him and his family loves him and we would not want him any different. He is happy, healthy. He loves music and sign language and Blue's Clues and Barney. He loves to run and he's in therapeutic horsebackriding. He has an awesome quality of life.

I could go on but I'm gonna stop now...

ASLER86 · Mar 7, 2005

Lokisdottir said:
I absolutely would care.

To me, a first-trimester embryo/fetus is not a person. It has no brain activity. Even if it can feel pain, it doesn't have a mind to comprehend it.

Can you tell me where you found that fact?
What about those who are adults and become brain-dead after an accident?
Why is it if a fetus dies at 20 weeks its a miscarriage and its loss is mourned but if someone aborts at the same time its an abortion and a pile of tissue and no one cares?

Other facts:
A "fetus" (which by the way means "little one" in latin) has a heartbeat by 21 days after conception. It can feel pain.

For anyone interested...The Least of These by Curt Young is a good book on abortion.
Other resources:
abortionfacts.com and abortiontv.com

I'll get off my soapbox now, I promise ( :

Electra · Mar 7, 2005

ASLER86 said:
I know a mother who was raped and who kept her child. He is now a healthy, happy four year old boy.
Seriously deformed child??? what's your definition of a deformed child? Deaf? blind? cerebral palsy? downs syndrome? The list could go on and on....
Do you believe in mercy killings?

I have a cousin who is special needs. He is eleven, he can't speak, and he functions at a level of a preschooler and he will most likely never live on his own. should he have been aborted and died? I love him and his family loves him and we would not want him any different. He is happy, healthy. He loves music and sign language and Blue's Clues and Barney. He loves to run and he's in therapeutic horsebackriding. He has an awesome quality of life.

I could go on but I'm gonna stop now...

Just because YOU know someone who does something certain way, it doesnt automatically make it valid for everyone else.

Its woman's choice - there are many reasons why women would want an abortion and if she so chooses, she should be able and free to do that. Ban abortion and it will still happen, in the back allyways and unlicenced medical practitioners - makes no differance, people who want an abortion will have one, and should have the right to do so.

ASLER86 · Mar 7, 2005

Oh, sorry but one more thing.

Sorry if I got a little heated but this is really a touchy subject for me.

I believe that abortion should become illegal, but first we need to educate. I used to be middle-minded, so-to speak about abortion until I started researching it for myself and how the baby develops in the womb. I just find it so hard that we live in such an educated world and no one realizes that the fetus is more than a pile of tissue but a living, breathing being.

If anyone wants to abort their baby, I will take their baby and raise him or her as my own. My heart cries out knowing that everyday more and more innocence is lost. Do we really know what we are doing? We could be killing off the next Einstein or the future scientist who may find a cure for cancer. I believe that every life is put on earth for a reason.

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

ASLER86 said:
If anyone wants to abort their baby, I will take their baby and raise him or her as my own.

Pft. Yeah, right. Sure you will. Empty words are just that, empty words. Something tells me that abortions happened in your state today that you didn't show up at the clinic for. More than 40% of women have abortions, which means that it's not only possible a friend or family member of yours has had an abortion, it's likely.

My heart cries out knowing that everyday more and more innocence is lost. Do we really know what we are doing? We could be killing off the next Einstein or the future scientist who may find a cure for cancer. I believe that every life is put on earth for a reason.

And we could be aborting the next Hitler, Saddam, Charles Manson, or Celine Dion. To assume every abortion aborts a rocket scientist who was going to save the world is not only statistically improbable, it's wishful thinking and very naive.

Instead of fanciful "every abortion aborts a cancer scientist" and "I'm going to adopt every baby," which does nothing to improve the problem, work with yoru community or other organizations to do something about abortion. That's why I'm involved with Planned Parenthood. I want to lower abortion, not speak whistfully of adopting 1.2 million fetuses.

Voodoo Gypsy · Mar 7, 2005

ASLER86 said:
Most children lingering in one foster home to another are older children who were removed from their home because of abuse or neglect. There are LONG waiting lists of couples wanting to adopt a newborn.

So the kids who are bounced from home to home are less worthy of a home than newborns?

Frankly, I think if you're going to adopt, you shouldn't be able to choose the age, gender, or appearence of the child. You should get a child in need of a home. I feel for parents who can't have kids, but I feel more for the kids who'll reach the age of 18 without knowing what a family unit is like because their childhood was one Foster Home stop after the other.

The intention of the adoption system is to give kids good homes, not give adults a vast selection of children to pick and choose out of. The focus shouldn't be on the adults, it should be on the kids. If you want a child that badly, you won't care about the age or gender of said child, and if you care about those asthetics as a hindge on adoption, then you shouldn't be adopting.

Tawny · Mar 7, 2005

hear hear.

Is abortion better than the alternative?

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