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Abortion Debate


Nuclear

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Anti-Abortion as an issue is politically unwinable in my view - at least as arguements are currently put forward.

Yes, and once that was said of abolitionism and the emancipation of women. Thankfully, the people fighting for those causes didn't give up despite the widespread belief that those changes would tear our society apart and cause economic collapse, and now we have a better world because of it.

It is an imperfect solution to a complicated social problem, a problem caused in large part by the growing pervasiveness of liberal social values and ideology over the course of the past 50 years.

Stop saying that it is a solution. It is not any kind of a solution, it obscures problems by sweeping them under the carpet. If you have a social problem, killing millions of people who may suffer from it is not a solution, any more than genocide and mass killing have ever been solutions to problems. Was the Great Terror the solution to a problem? How about the Holocaust? And if not, why is abortion the solution to a problem?

I am sick of people trying to put a nice face on abortion. Abortion looks like this. (Be advised before you click that the site is extremely graphic).

Webster's defines genocide as "The deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or other group defined by the exterminators as undesirable."

The "national/political group" is unborn children and 1 out of every 3 is now being put to death in North America. Pol Pot killed 1 out of every 4 Cambodians, and that was viewed as genocide. We are committing genocide against our own children. 46 million children are put to death each year, which is almost double the number that Hitler and Stalin combined killed, in total.

It does not matter a tinker's cuss what social problems we have. Killing our children is unacceptable.

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i sometimes have to convince myself that women have made headway for some superiority, and it is not “just” equality but a “rightful” control over their own body and but now there is something about this individual rights.

somehow we are of the notion that women are already librated and have made their point.

er…..someone please tell me when does this individual right kicks in for the women?

i am mostly incline towards alternatives as in choices.

it is just my opinion that this abortion issue is taken at extremity on both sides and that dominating our rational is an emergence of personal opinion and is mostly highlighted where we have incorporated all our experiences, believes, morals, ethics and for some like myself openness, flexibility of thoughts to change from tradition into stalemate

but i do see the destructive construe of accomplishing nothing in stalking, serious threatening, scaring and terrifying others including doctors and acting on evil that result in injury and death – you commit fallacies and kill the very thing you believe in every time you sabotage others, you collide within the torment of your own being

what i meant is that instead of questioning morals and ethics of people decisions ask simple questions such as are we invasive of others?

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a “rightful” control over their own body

Unfortunately, an unborn child is not part of a woman's body. If it were, then for 9 months a mother-to-be would have two DNA codes, often two blood groups, and in 50% of cases, be a hermaphrodite. To state that the fetus is part of her mother is a biological impossibility.

someone please tell me when does this individual right kicks in for the women?

A woman being free to kill her child is not a right she should have because it infringes on the rights of others. Don't forget, 50% of aborted children are themselves women, and that's just in North America. Worldwide, abortion kills more females than males.

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Stop saying that it is a solution. It is not any kind of a solution, it obscures problems by sweeping them under the carpet.

I understand and respect the genuine moral objection that some have to abortion in general, but in all honesty to myself, I cannot equate an 8 week old embryo with a person or even a more highly developed fetus(2nd-3rd trimester) for that matter. It all boils down to the question of where life really begins and I, personally, don't have the answer to that question. Unfortunately, its something the scientific community has been unable to determine aswell.

The things I do know for certain is that partial birth abortion is an abomidation, but to suddenly eliminate abortion in it's entirety without first addressing the underlying problems in society would be detrimental.

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its strange how much we seem to want to give the unborn status and bind it with some law and yet if a dying child outside of the womb need the only match of a bone marrow from the mother it is consider just terrible if "she decides" [operative words are of choice] to disagree

you keep insisting that life must be support from conception to birth and then yet we are only voluntary require to sustain that life after

yep, it is my wish that we populate the land with females, so my choice alternatives will also allow for gender selection. its the only way to get rid of the male perspective rooted in everything and entitled "the norm"

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you keep insisting that life must be support from conception to birth and then yet we are only voluntary require to sustain that life after

I don't understand what you are saying. Can you re-phrase that?

It all boils down to the question of where life really begins and I, personally, don't have the answer to that question.

Then, once again, I say you must err on the side of life. As I said, if you are driving late at night and see a shape that looks like it might be a child, you brake rather than bet it's a shadow and step on the gas. If you see a person lying motionless half-out of a river you don't assume they are dead and walk on, you assume they are alive and hurry to help them.

If you are not sure whether a human being is alive or not, the humane thing to do is to refrain from doing anything that would kill her were she alive, surely?

By the way, although personhood is a legal term and has previously not applied to blacks and women, as it now does not apply to the unborn, the scientific community is unanimous in stating that the unborn child is actually a unique human being.

to suddenly eliminate abortion in it's entirety without first addressing the underlying problems in society would be detrimental

On the contrary, I believe that no serious effort to eliminate or even counter those problems will be made as long as we have the band-aid "solution" of abortion.

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Then, once again, I say you must err on the side of life.

I must admit, Hugo, you make a compelling argument here and I have to agree with you that one should err on the side of life. None the less, I must maintain my admittedly immoral position on this issue and I'll tell you why:

Up until some time ago, I used to maintain a position very similar to yours. Then, regardless of having taken every precaution, I encountered the prospect of having to actually deal with this momumental choice. While, thank God, the situation resolved itself and I was never forced to make that decision, I found that I had indeed already choosen. As a young man in college, with a bright future ahead of me, I found myself unwilling to sacrifice that future and instead was willing to live with a decision that would have resulted in the destruction of a proto human being.

While I won't, by any means, imply that you would have made the same decision, you simply cannot know for sure until you walk a mile in other man's shoes.

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Then, once again, I say you must err on the side of life

well yes hugo you are right, but that philosophy is valid in the context in which the outcome of that presumption will change the decision made.

in truth, even if a clump of cells can be considered life, a women can still not want that life to proceed inside her.

so even if we err on the side of life, and claim that even fertalized eggs having the potential of life, must be protected as life, we end up with the situation of forcing one person in the interests of another.

and i dont think that that is philosophically less important that making the initial distinction. if the entire point of identifying life and sencient thought and humnanity is to preserve and protect its important, then by forcing a women to submit her autonomy to the presumed unborn child, you end up weakening very point you are trying to make. that life itself is the qualification for self determination.

so i dont see how both points can be valid at the same time.

sirriff

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Hello Hugo

what i meant was that i am sure we can now find the resources to hold guns to the women's head making sure that nothing threatens the rights of this dear unborn e.g. spontaneous or induced actions during pregnacy. we are concern that we do not kill our children, whilst, we surely are justified leaving the mother or child unattended to die after delivery and our steadfast wary anti-abortionist and his guns shoots off to other aborting places.

i feel now this is a debate is of the anti-abortion rights vs. women's rights and i sincerely hope the former have started the first challenged journey of those progressive minute steps that women have crossed before they actually realise how much catching up is needed to be on a level field with womens rights

it feels like being victimized all over when our rights, freedom of choice, individuality, libarations of freedom are put to be compromised -

we need to positively educate, promote and empower women to make decisions and to choose....wisely in their every walk of life, and when they are capable, plan, prepared and ready will children

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While I won't, by any means, imply that you would have made the same decision, you simply cannot know for sure until you walk a mile in other man's shoes.

I have two responses to this. Firstly, once an issue becomes personal to you, all objectivity is lost. If your child was snatched off the street, raped, tortured and murdered, you would want the perpetrator to be tortured to death. No method of execution would be too terrible for that criminal, however, as a society we can't go back to the days when state-sanctioned torture and gruesome executions were the norm.

Secondly, I have walked a thousand miles in those shoes. I'm still walking in them now.

we end up with the situation of forcing one person in the interests of another.

The American Declaration of Independence lists the basic and inalienable human rights as "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights lists the first three rights as "life, liberty and security of person". Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms lists the first three legal rights as "life, liberty and security of the person."

This means that of all human rights, the right to life is the most important. This is because without the right to life, all other rights are forfeit. A dead person is deprived of all rights and choices. The right of the unborn child to live overrides the right of the mother to "autonomy".

Furthermore, in 99% (almost certainly more) of abortion cases, the fact is that the woman herself consented to the act that made her pregnant in the first place. I do not see how it can be argued that, if she is not allowed an abortion, the state has violated her right to "autonomy", any more than it can be alleged that the state has denied the right of life to a successful suicide victim. The individual has the power to override or waive their own rights.

i feel now this is a debate is of the anti-abortion rights vs. women's rights

Considering that 23 million women a year die from abortions I find that quite funny.

it feels like being victimized all over when our rights, freedom of choice, individuality, libarations of freedom are put to be compromised

Since when has the right to kill another innocent human being ever been part of the freedoms you cite?

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Though I feel that abortion is a necessary social evil in modern society, I still shake my head in dismay when I read that some women have been indoctrinated into believing that pro-abortion lobby groups are on their side with motives as pure as driven snow, as opposed to anti-abortion groups who are evil, who want to hold women back.

Unfortunately, the pro-abortion lobby, while supposedly partnering themselves with women on the high minded road to empowering women so that informed decisions/choices can be made, in fact may have been following a different "agenda" path.

For instance when a significant abortion health risk is not disclosed to women, I'd suggest that action subverts the empowerment/informed decision process and impunes the motives of those who are responsible.

Consider the fact that the link between increased risk of breast cancer to abortion has been kept under raps by pro-abortion lobbying groups. IMHO, women should be more discerning, more dispassionate about the motives/agenda of those they view as staunch allies in the fight to "liberate" women.

Medical group: Tell women about abortion-cancer risk Nov.12, 2003

"...The Catholic Medical Association has added its voice to growing support for legislation requiring abortion doctors to inform prospective patients about the increased risk of breast cancer associated with having an abortion.

The resolution cites evidence supporting an abortion-breast cancer link, commonly known as the ABC link. Twenty-nine of 38 published studies conducted worldwide since 1957 show a positive association between the two. Seventeen of the 29 are statistically significant, which means there's a 95 percent certainty that the association is not by chance.

The CMA's endorsement follows a similar announcement by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, or AAPS, favoring disclosure to patients of the "highly plausible" relationship between abortion and increased risk of breast cancer.

Groups such as Planned Parenthood attack the validity of the research and refuse to inform prospective abortion recipients of the existence, dismissing even the statistically significant findings as "misinformation" being used "as a weapon in the campaign against safe, legal abortion." ...

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Morgan,

It is a good point you raise. It should be noted that Planned Parenthood is a profit-making organisation and thus has a vested interest in ensuring that as many women as possible have abortions. Each abortion done is money in their pockets.

Women still die from abortions. Although the image of the coat-hanger, back-alley abortion has been succesfully used by pro-abort groups, 90% of illegal abortions were done by licensed physicians in good standing in their offices (source: Planned Parenthood, 1960). This has not changed that much, and neither has the death rate.

Furthermore, since abortion clinics are profit-making enterprises with customers to satisfy and an image to uphold, many deaths and serious injuries from botched abortions are not disclosed. In 1978 the Chicago Sun-Times investigated abortion clinics in the Chicago area and found that in Chicago alone, 12 women had died during an illegal abortion, but their deaths had not been correctly reported to the authorities. The official statistics for that year stated that 21 women died in abortions in the entire country so it's hard to imagine that cover-ups of this magnitude are not going on everywhere, particularly as the number of abortions carried out each year continues to climb.

Dr. Dennis Cavanaugh states in American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that "there has been no major impact on the number of women dying from abortion in the US."

Having one abortion doubles your chances of having an ectopic pregnancy. Having two or more quadruples it (American Journal of Public Health). Ectopic pregnancies are responsible for 12% of all pregnancy-related deaths.

30% of women who undergo abortion will suffer pelvic inflammatory disease (American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology). This causes miscarriage in subsequent pregnancies, secondary infertility, dispareunia, and chronic pelvic pain.

Women who have first-trimester abortions double their chances of developing breast cancer (British Journal: Cancer).

Tubal infertility is 30% more common amongst women who have had abortions (Madore, Effects of induced abortion)

Abortion multiplies your risk of placenta previa by 7 to 15 times. This complication will necessitate an emergency c-section and is life-threatening for mother and child alike (American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology).

45% of women who have abortions will develop suicidal tendencies resulting from feelings about the procedure (Women's World).

The American Psychiatric Association recognises that abortion can produce post-traumatic stress disorder.

86% of abortions are performed in profit-making clinics. These clinics are not regulated, and do not have to perform pathologic exams before surgery (as all hospitals do), nor are they obliged to fully disclose details of the procedure in consent forms, as hospitals are.

Abortionists deliberately lie to women and conceal these truths from them in order to get more money from them. Not even tobacco companies are allowed to get away with this.

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It is a good point you raise. It should be noted that Planned Parenthood is a profit-making organisation and thus has a vested interest in ensuring that as many women as possible have abortions. Each abortion done is money in their pockets

as if pat robertson, and jerry falwell, and all those other evangelical right wing nuts whose only job it is to point out supposed immorality in others dont have a vested interest in thier position?

the entire conservative christian political movement is one big corporperation, huge amounts of money and power in claiming the moral highroad and convincing bible belt citizens to follow them.

everyone has an agenda, but i doubt planned parenthood is even close to the conservative christian machine in the states in terms of revenue and power. not to mention, most medical services are for profit in the US. alot of churches make pretty damn good $$ too from what the sex abuse scandels showed us.

Sirriff

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Good Sir, I thought the same thing when I read Hugo's last post. Both sides do have a vested interest in the abortion debate. There are some who are so anti-establishment that they cannot accept the fact that they cannot do what they wish to their own body. Their are some who are so pro-traditional conservativism that they cannot accept the fact that some do not believe as they do. Whatever the case may be, I have thoughts on the entire debate.

It would seem a lot of time, effort, and money is spent by the pro-life groups to protest, lobby, fund medical groups to give expert testimony, etc.. All of this to little avail. Butting heads over such a personsal and individual choice seems to be ludicrous.

I was wondering if more good could be done if the pro-life groups used their time and money to overhaul and improve the adoption process. I'm too lazy to look up the stats, but I recall that the adoption process in the US(as well as Canada) is a long tedious, drawn-out process, while the waiting list for potential parents is long and the orphanages are overcrowded (If this isn't absolutely true, just bear with me).

If pro-lifers spent less money on signs that labelled people murderers, and more money on making the adoption choice more apealling, as well as more accessible, wouldn't that message be more acceptable to the public? Wouldn't pregnant women respond better to 'Hey. Look at this. It's not so bad.' than to 'Murderous Whore'? Truly, I believe, abortion isn't desirable for anyone, it just seems to be the 'lesser of the evils'.

Any thoughts?

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I still shake my head in dismay when I read that some women have been indoctrinated into believing that pro-abortion lobby groups are on their side with motives as pure as driven snow, as opposed to anti-abortion groups who are evil, who want to hold women back.

This was Morgan's original point, which I backed up. Neither he nor I said that pro-life groups are not profit-making, we just said that it is foolish to imagine that pro-choice groups are purely motivated by the liberation of women and the greater good of humanity whilst pro-life groups are evil and just want to boss people around.

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Sir Riff and Lost,

Didn't you read my post about the breast cancer risk associated with abortion that has been buried by the pro-abortion advocates?

You think that's okay? Is cancer risk another example of abortion being nobody's business and that if a woman wants to expose her body to breast cancer risk, it's her choice?

But how does an omission of information like breast cancer risk make abortion "informed consent?" Nowadays you can't take a simple antibiotic without the pharmacist giving you a run down on all the possible contra-indications but abortion and breast cancer link not being mentioned is just perfectly fine.

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If pro-lifers spent less money on signs that labelled people murderers, and more money on making the adoption choice more apealling, as well as more accessible, wouldn't that message be more acceptable to the public?

Firstly, one does not have to propose a solution in order to speak out against a crime. Plenty of abolitionists did not take slaves into their homes, but spoke out against slavery anyway. Did that make their position wrong? Many Germans objected to the Holocaust, but unlike, say, Oskar Schindler were not able to help in a practical way. Did that make them wrong, or their position untenable? No.

Secondly, I invite you to pick up your phone book and look in the yellow pages under "pregnancy counselling." Guaranteed, you will find at least one non-profit counselling and aid centre. These are run by volunteers, and give counselling as well as practical aid. They can give you things you need for a baby, find you a place to live, help you find adoptive parents and so on. I can see five in my phone book and I don't live in a very big town.

Certainly, in any group there are hypocrites, but to say that pro-lifers are all after "huge amounts of money and power" is libellous and false. I myself have volunteered my time, money and material goods to try and help women in 'crisis pregnancy' situations and I don't seem to be any richer or more powerful for it.

While some pro-lifers try to help in this regard (many actually do adopt children, including handicapped ones, or provide other aid), I'm not sure where the pro-choicers are. Planned Parenthood won't be bothered with you after your cheque clears, no matter how traumatised you are. In fact, I've read of several cases where women in severe pain and heavy bleeding have been kicked out to make room, or because the doctor who performed the abortion was then playing golf and didn't fancy stopping. Not only do abortion clinics not follow up after the procedure, sometimes they don't even finish the procedure properly.

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I was just making the suggestion that if they try a different approach, they might be able to succeed in their goals.

Such as what? You mentioned reforming the adoption process, however, I don't think that is even necessary.

118,000 adoptions take place each year, according to the American Association of Open Adoption Agencies. The President of the National Committee for Adoption claims that "if abortion were totally outlawed, we guess the numbers to be 68,400 more white infants and 3,960 non-white infants needing adoptive homes." That's 72,360 additional babies - but those same agencies have 1,500,000 American couples on their lists, waiting to adopt children.

So, explain to me why the adoption process is holding back the abolition of abortion, Lost. If you need more homes for unwanted children, I can find you one and a half million homes right now.

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So, one and half million families are willing to pop up and take a child home? Interesting. If so, then you are correct, the adoption process has nothing to do with abortion, but is merely conducive to the kids who have no family, source of living, or home. Where did you find out that one and half million families are looking for adoption?

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Where did you find out that one and half million families are looking for adoption?

I've already answered that.

the adoption process has nothing to do with abortion, but is merely conducive to the kids who have no family, source of living, or home

None of those are newborns, so the legality or illegality of abortion will have absolutely no impact on those children, except, of course, in the very roundabout way that a society that actually values the lives of children may become more conscientious about those not well cared for.

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