Poll: Abortions in today's society: your views

[Senaro]

I don't like abortions, but I can't say that people shouldn't be allowed to get them. My suggestion is to keep using other forms of contraception besides the implant, especially considering that they're known to fail.

 

[Nimcha]

Heh, I've never heard of that implant before. I can see your worry, if it's not 100% safe then what's the point right? Maybe your girlfriend should consider the pill?

What, another method of contraception that isn't 100% effective? Like all[i/] methods of contraception (except, of course, abstinence).

Well, maybe together with the implant... Oh well I don't know anything about it, disregard me.

 

[Mandalore_15]

i believe abortion is wrong, but i also don't feel it should be illegal. but more to the point of your question, no, i don't feel men should have much say at all in the decision-making process. it's the woman's body. if we're gonna screw 'em, we gotta live with the consequences.

This is the kind of viewpoint I find highly objectionable for two reasons:

1. It's predicated on the view that men are entirely responsible for sexual acts. This is bullshit. Men and women both have equal urges to have and enjoy sex, so both have to be responsible for any outcomes.
2. Equal responsibility breeds equal rights. If you believe this (which I strongly do), then both people should have a say in keeping or terminating the child.

It's these unequal rights that I think leads to the most tension. You take a situation that two people are equally responsible for but are able to dump the majority of the negative consequences on one party. The woman gets first rights to the child (unless shown to be negligent), the father gets no say in termination and then has to pay for the child's upbringing for the rest of his life... I'm not saying I have the answer but this just seems wrong to me.

 

[GiantRaven]

2. Equal responsibility breeds equal rights. If you believe this (which I strongly do), then both people should have a say in keeping or terminating the child.

What if one parent leans towards abortion and the other doesn't?

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

As far as Implanon's concerned, when a woman has it inserted, they're meant to go for a blood test a few weeks later to make sure it's working (in other words, releasing the correct levels of hormone into the woman's system) That, and the fact that no method of contraception is 100% effective makes me wonder how so many people have been able to claim compensation for babies conceived whilst using Implanon... Seems I've been lucky to have used the implant as my chosen method of not making babies for three years, without any problems or scares...

As for my views on abortion, well, whilst I've never had one, I've known a couple of people who have. It's the couple's choice, or the woman's choice, for those that're single (as for whether it'd be better for them/her to have a termination or a baby at that point in their lives). And it really isn't anyone else's business.

 

[Mandalore_15]

2. Equal responsibility breeds equal rights. If you believe this (which I strongly do), then both people should have a say in keeping or terminating the child.

What if one parent leans towards abortion and the other doesn't?

Well that's the problem I'm trying to get people to discuss... in my opinion, in a perfect world:

1. Where the woman wants to keep it and the man doesn't, and both are equally responsible, the man should be cleared of responsibility (i.e. not have to pay for the kid's upbringing).
2. Where the man wants to keep it and the woman doesn't is more tricky... I think in the end the woman should get to make the choice as it is her body that the baby needs to grow. However, with future technologies transplant surrogacies may be an option.

Of course, these views are based on my own opinions that a foetus becomes a person, and thus worthy of protection, only at a certain stage of development. Also, they would probably have many difficulties in being put into practice.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

There are alternatives to abortions you know. So no, I don't agree with abortions.

I'm adopted and I found out my birth mother was initially planning on aborting me(was going to go abroad to do it). Fortunately for me, where she went to said she had missed the legal window and refused her. She didn't seek out more illicit means. A priest suggested adoption and thats what happened.

I was at risk of not existing, I felt like a part of me curled up and died when I heard about this.

Abortions are the easy way out and also the most selfish... man up and deal with it as this will define you as a person. If worse comes to worst then keep adoption in consideration. Accidents happen and most people have to deal with it in some way or form.

EDIT: And for the love of (insert deity here) research the subject before making decisions. There are plenty of fraud adoption services out there, so make sure what you seek is legit if it comes to it.

 

[GiantRaven]

2. Where the man wants to keep it and the woman doesn't is more tricky... I think in the end the woman should get to make the choice as it is her body that the baby needs to grow. However, with future technologies transplant surrogacies may be an option.

And herein lies the problem with that argument: you've already gone back on it. There just isn't any way that a male parent could have adequate and equal input on the choice of abortion.

 

[Mandalore_15]

N.B. I know some of you will say that this should be on the religion an dpolitics board, but frankly I want to keep religious views on abortion OUT OF IT. To me they are less than worthless.

My religion teaches it is the woman's near absolute right to have an abortion, right up to the 9th month and until you are part way through the actual delivery.

What religion is that?

 

[Mandalore_15]

2. Where the man wants to keep it and the woman doesn't is more tricky... I think in the end the woman should get to make the choice as it is her body that the baby needs to grow. However, with future technologies transplant surrogacies may be an option.

And herein lies the problem with that argument: you've already gone back on it. There just isn't any way that a male parent could have adequate and equal input on the choice of abortion.

Yeah I know... but if I were to say I think people should be able to be forced to have abortions, that just leaves you open to being called a nazi etc. The truth of the matter is that in both situations you can't please both people 100%. But it CAN be fairer than it is at the moment.

 

[Ham_authority95]

If my mother had to get an abortion to avoid me becoming a rape-child or a crack baby, I would much rather be an aborted fetus right now.

That being said, the government should butt the fuck out of this issue. If people want to have one, they will have one, legally or not...

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

i believe abortion is wrong, but i also don't feel it should be illegal. but more to the point of your question, no, i don't feel men should have much say at all in the decision-making process. it's the woman's body. if we're gonna screw 'em, we gotta live with the consequences.

This is the kind of viewpoint I find highly objectionable for two reasons:

1. It's predicated on the view that men are entirely responsible for sexual acts. This is bullshit. Men and women both have equal urges to have and enjoy sex, so both have to be responsible for any outcomes.
2. Equal responsibility breeds equal rights. If you believe this (which I strongly do), then both people should have a say in keeping or terminating the child.

It's these unequal rights that I think leads to the most tension. You take a situation that two people are equally responsible for but are able to dump the majority of the negative consequences on one party. The woman gets first rights to the child (unless shown to be negligent), the father gets no say in termination and then has to pay for the child's upbringing for the rest of his life... I'm not saying I have the answer but this just seems wrong to me.

noooo... my opinion is based on the fact that it's her body, not on the misguided idea that only men want sex. if men carried babies to term in their bodies, i'd say the men should get the final say. also, despite issues of child-support, women still take the largest burden for child-rearing (unless you stay together and become a house-husband). put quite simply: a child will almost always have far greater impact on a woman's life than on a man's. oh, boohoo, us guys have to pay some money. if we want to, we can say f*** off and never have anything more to do with the woman or child than to write a check every month. if you ask me, it sounds like the system is skewed in OUR favor, not the woman's.

 

[Nimcha]

There are alternatives to abortions you know. So no, I don't agree with abortions.

I'm adopted and I found out my birth mother was initially planning on aborting me(was going to go abroad to do it). Fortunately for me, where she went to said she had missed the legal window and refused her. She didn't seek out more illicit means. A priest suggested adoption and thats what happened.

I was at risk of not existing, I felt like a part of me curled up and died when I heard about this.

Abortions are the easy way out and also the most selfish... man up and deal with it as this will define you as a person. If worse comes to worst then keep adoption in consideration. Accidents happen and most people have to deal with it in some way or form.

I think it is rather iffy judging people who undergo an abortion based on your personal experience.

 

[DreamerM]

Abortions are the easy way out and also the most selfish... man up and deal with it as this will define you as a person.

I disagree. There is more to a woman then her reproductive potential. And a woman will not be judged only on her abilities (or lack thereof) as a mother.

Whether this is good or bad, I don't know. So much suffering could be avoided if people just took the time to be good parents. But some people lack the resources to feed and care for a baby, and some people simply should never be parents, period.

 

[Estelindis]

At what stage do you consider it to be "a child" though? As soon as the egg is fertilised and it's effectively a single-celled organism with the potential to become a human being, or later after it's developed more?

Well, there are many different ways of looking at the human condition. One can say a person is a member of the human species if they are capable of producing fertile offspring (though this is, of course, only one of many possible biological criteria re. speciation), but I don't think a person who is not so capable has any lesser right to life (nor have I ever seen anyone else claim this). One can say that a person capable of communicating through speech has reached an important milestone in becoming a member of the human community, and the ability certainly enriches their human life, but that doesn't mean that someone who cannot do so is excluded from that community and thus deprived of the right to life. There are many things that make us human, but, in my opinion, no real grounds for depriving anyone of that most fundamental right.

So: is the human being in the first moment of conception fully human according to every definition that we might possibly use, taking into account all the myriad abilities that humans can have? I don't think so, but then again neither are most of us. We grow towards a full richness of humanity after birth as well as before it. ("Viability" is a criterion often thrown around in the right to life debate, but a newborn infant isn't capable of fending for itself - we still acknowledge and protect his or her right to life. There are lots of ways in which newborns match up to the unborn in this respect, but thankfully we still protect newborns' lives.) Ultimately, if human life does not begin at conception then it does not begin anywhere. There is no other single moment we can point towards that is so clear; all others are much more ambiguous. (And while many fertilised eggs meet a natural end before they can develop much further, this isn't a grounds for abortion - no more than the fact that people die of natural causes every day all over the world gives us the right to kill anyone we wish.) And, ultimately, the attempt to chip away at the rights of any human being to life on the grounds that they are not sufficiently like ourselves in their appearance and abilities always ends up diminishing us all. We have no shortage of examples from history to show us that. So I believe it's better to argue for the right to life of this tiny being than to erode it.

I'm not asking these questions to be hostile or anything, I'm just interested in your views.

Your tone is not hostile at all, so I don't interpret your words that way. Hopefully I come across that way too. A respectful debate is a great thing that I always enjoy.

I think there's one point I disagree on though and that the 100% effectiveness thing... while there are labels etc. on contraceptives that warn of these things, the fact is that doctors have been giving lots of young women the implant and giving them the strong impression that it is pretty much 100% effective... I think people have to live their lives with some guarantees.

Your wording here is interesting. You say that people have to live their life with some kind of guarantee, but clearly on this subject there is no such thing. (If there was, this issue would be quite different.) Are people supposed to assure themselves of some kind of fiction in order to relieve themselves of responsibility for their choices - in order to make life easier for themselves in some bland, cowardly way? This actually seems to me a retreat from the challenges of full humanity.

It's true that doctors issue pills, implants, and other contraception to many people, giving them a strong impression of their effectiveness. Well, they often are effective (particularly when people combine a number of methods that don't interfere with each other's operating method, e.g. condom plus the pill rather than just one or the other), so that is a fair reflection of the facts. But if any of them claim that they are actually 100% effective (with no exceptions - not "pretty much 100% effective," which I think is a contradiction in terms), then they are lying. And I think a person has responsibility to check up on such matters if a doctor gives them such a (false) assurance, just as we have the responsibility to fact-check anything important in order to be sure of it.

If not [i.e. in the absence of guarantees], they'd never have sex ever, and what kind of life would that be?

No, not at all. If people thought about the reality of the situation and accepted that only they are responsible for their own actions, then they would only have sex when they are willing to accept their duty of care over any child they might have, regardless of the fact that their chances of having a child might actually be minuscule due to contraception being used. (A minuscule chance is still a chance; if I shoot a gun into an apparently deserted field and still happen to hit someone, I have responsibility to help them even though I didn't mean to shoot them.)

Personally, I am acquainted with a small number of people who used contraception and still had children (two couples who are still together, and one single mother). They took every care to follow the methods of contraception, but when those didn't work in spite of such care they stepped up their responsibilities and became wonderful parents. Although parenthood has made life more difficult for all of them, they all also say that it's the best thing that ever happened to them. If a person thinks they can't do that, then it's up to them to restrain themselves. Sorry if this sounds unpalatable or unrealistic (or both), but I believe sex is for adults and I think two of the main criteria for adulthood are wisdom and courage: taking account of all available knowledge when making a decision, and then accepting responsibility for one's actions even if it ends up being very difficult. This is why I have chosen not to have sex with anyone until marriage, even though I am naturally very curious about sex, interested in it, and generally eager: personally, I want any child I might have to be conceived and raised within marriage, so it falls upon me to follow this course of action. Now not everyone will care so much for marriage, but everyone does have the duty to take responsibility for their actions (and thus ready to deal with the possible consequences of sharing sex if they choose to do so).

Sorry for the wall of text. A more skilled writer than myself could express matters more concisely. I do promise I am working on becoming better.

I've met a few people (not a lot, but a few) who argue from a pro-life stance while being agnostic or atheist. Not all of the pro-life arguments are focused on religion or on what God wills.

This is absolutely true. In fact, one of the mothers I mentioned above who kept her child in spite of not intendinng to have one veers between agnosticism and mild paganism and at the same time has very strong beliefs about the sanctity of all life.

Whenever people talk about abortions, they seem to turn it into black-and-white, yes-or-no question, which it is not.

There is no moment in fetal development where we can clearly say we have a new human individual there, it's a gradual process, and a zygote should not have the same rights as a 9-months old fetus that is about to be born any day and can easily survive without the mother.

No one has the right to kill a defenceless child, whether that child is born or unborn.

What is your definition for a child? At which point of the fertilization/pregnancy it should be considered a human?

Please consider my reply to Mandalore above also a response to you. Hopefully you do not find it too black and white. (Though I believe one must recognise as black or white anything that actually *is* black or white, people are often far too eager to simplify these issues and lose out on much on their inherent complexity.)

 

[Blind Sight]

I don't have any real issue with abortion as I don't view a fetus as human until the thalamus and two hemispheres of the brain are developed, and almost all abortions take place before this period. Without the thalamus the fetus can feel no pain and can't even self-recognize, thus I feel that it is perfectly humane for an abortion to take place under these circumstances. It really comes down to what the couple wants, but I'd say that the woman's choice takes priority (but shouldn't necessarily negate the man's).

 

[Dags90]

Well, they don't sound particularly pleasant...so I wouldn't exactly urge people to do it as entertainment but...I'm pro-choice. I also think, as another poster pointed out, men should have the ability to have a "legal abortion" in which they rescind all rights and responsibilities to a child. Then we can finally put the whole "baby trap" scenario to death as even a possibility. Within an appropriate time frame of being informed that the child is theirs, that shouldn't ever be longer than the period in which an abortion could be performed in the jurisdiction of the child's birth (something would have to drafted for births out of the country where abortion might be illegal).

There are certain inequalities in choice that could come from this (diagnosed problems, etc), but these can largely be overcome by the woman telling the father as soon as possible, which is something I'd encourage anyway.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

snip

I'm just quoting you so you can read my response to the OP's comment.

There are alternatives to abortions you know. So no, I don't agree with abortions.

I'm adopted and I found out my birth mother was initially planning on aborting me(was going to go abroad to do it). Fortunately for me, where she went to said she had missed the legal window and refused her. She didn't seek out more illicit means. A priest suggested adoption and thats what happened.

I was at risk of not existing, I felt like a part of me curled up and died when I heard about this.

Abortions are the easy way out and also the most selfish... man up and deal with it as this will define you as a person. If worse comes to worst then keep adoption in consideration. Accidents happen and most people have to deal with it in some way or form.

I think it is rather iffy judging people who undergo an abortion based on your personal experience.

My point is, abortions take away potential life and the only reason you present as to why you'd want to abort is that you're afraid it will strain your relationship. That is selfish (not evil mind you). Abortion is the easy way out... FOR YOU! It is by no means easy on your partner as it goes beyond grief for her (which even you may be struck by).

Adotpion isn't easy I'm sure. Current trends suggest it's difficult to put up for adoption as there are fewer and fewer people adopting (considering there are higher rates of infertility, I find this odd).

If your partner wants to keep it then all you can do is stick with it or bail. If you want to want to stay but are sure it will tear you apart, then consider adoption.

You should talk to a professional (multiple would be better) if your concerned. You won't find an answer here. Just opinions (which is what you asked for).