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Forums - General Discussion - Should abortion be banned?

Alterego-X on 19 November 2009

Lostplanet22 said:
To prohibit abortions does not stop them. When women feel it is absolutely necessary, they will choose to have abortions--even in secret, without medical care, in dangerous circumstances.

Murder is illegal, yet people keep killing each other. So we could as well make it legal, right?

In the two decades before abortion was legal in the U.S., it's been estimated that nearly 1 million women per year sought out illegal abortions. Thousands died. Tens of thousands were mutilated.

Millions of babies were born, and lived complete lives.

All were forced to behave as if they were criminals.
Sometimes that happens with people who violate the law. They are treated like criminals.

Legal abortion not only protects women's lives, it also protects their health. For tens of thousands of women with heart disease, kidney disease, severe hypertension, sickle-cell anemia and severe diabetes and other illnesses that can be life-threatening, the availability of legal abortion has helped avert serious medical complications that could have resulted from childbirth. Before legal abortion, such women's choices were limited to dangerous illegal abortion or dangerous childbirt

Direct threat to life could be an exception, life is more valuable than potential life


If there is any matter which is personal and private, then pregnancy is it. There can be no more extreme invasion of privacy than requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted to compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop? The concept is morally repugnant. It violates traditional American ideas of individual rights and freedoms.

Freedom IS violated. There are laws. There are things you can't do. There are things you must do.  Abortion was, and  could be listed among these, society must choose if it is acceptable or not. "Freedom" as an ideal could mean many things, including the child's freedom to live.

Forty percent of 14-year-old girls will become pregnant before they turn 20. This could happen to your daughter or someone else close to you. Here are the critical questions: Should the penalty for lack of knowledge or even for a moment's carelessness be enforced pregnancy and child-rearing? 

Makes more sense than getting aborted for someone else's carelessness. 

And atlast, what if the women have a career? Many can't afford a baby, (they need to be in the store, they have the risk to lose their job).

There should be more laws supporting pregnancy and pregnant women, to begin with, regardless of abortion.

Adoption could help but what if their is no one to adopt the child? What if no one wants your 'african child?) etc..

Than it will be an orphan.

 



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Lostplanet22 on 19 November 2009

I just saw this discussios was going on for 200 years already lolz.



 

mrstickball on 19 November 2009
highwaystar101 said:
mrstickball said:

Abortion is about the only issue I have a non-libertarian view on. However, if I was given the ability to ban it, I am unsure if I would outright ban it (as it may not change the views of why people destroy life, which is the key component of why abortion even exists - we need to promote a culture of life and responsibility).

I understand that some argue that it's a human life from conception, others argue that it's at some other time, and I think that's a huge problem. Even if it's not human life, it is still life that will become human. That's why I consider abortion a bad thing. Furthermore, I am not very understanding of why it is more expedient to destroy the life as opposed to bringing it to term, and giving it up for adoption. As others have said, in most countries that allow abortion (western democracies) there is a high demand for adopting babies. If the reason for abortion is because a woman doesn't want the baby, and there are (litterally) millions of women that want the baby....Why not take the time, deliver the healthy baby, and give it away?

I understand your viewpoint, however, it's not one I can agree with. Women (and the men who impregnate them) take the responsibility of life very lax, and I think that's absolutely horrible. I think that getting pregnant is like getting drunk or high - you need to take responsibility for those actions. And I don't believe aborting the child is an action that should be taken.

However,

From a legal standpoint, I can't say I would instantaneously ban it if I was given the miraculous chance to get rid of such an atrocious practice. Our laws need revised concerning abortion - it's not a federal issue, it is a state issue and the onus should be on the state to allow (or disallow) the usage of abortion, as well as the praxis behind it (parental consent for teens, sonograms before abort, ect). States and their voting constituency should be the ones that decide how best to deal with the practice.

Having said all of that, the best way to deal with abortion from an inoffensive centrist point is that we absolutely must change the motivations behind abortion. When 90% of abortions are being done for mere social purposes - the mother does not want the baby - they are being done for the wrong reason, and we need to avoid that. We can best avoid that by promoting the usage of adoption, and instilling a culture of life, love and respect for women that decide to give up their baby for adoption. The link I gave earlier shows a strong correlation between cultural ideas - that single women raising or aborting by their own will - is greatly effecting why women abort, raise their kids in poverty, or decide to give up their children. Interestingly enough, it's the uneducated, poor American woman that decides to abort. There is a strong correlation between higher education and actually giving up the child. It's for that reason we need better education to instill a better understanding of responsibility that seems to lack from why women abort.

In the end, I think there's a way that we can remove abortion - through state law and cultural change - that respects the idea of being pro-choice and a culture being pro-life. Maybe the option needs to exist, but I think that most of the 40,000,000 kids that died in America are because of selfish women.

Also, one should note the interesting fact that the reason that Europe is well below the birth replacement rate is due to abortions. For every 1000 life births, there are 500 abortions. Do you think that this freedom is having a positive impact on your society?

@ Bolded: Me? I'm sorry, I'll stop getting abortions lol.

@ the European influence:

Europe is below the replacement rate due to abortions true, but I'm afraid that fact is misinterpreted to you I believe. I don't think that abortion is having a particularly negative impact on Western European society, statistically the Eastern European countries are the ones with the highest abortion rates, with countries like Ukraine and Russia topping the table (Russia having 6 abortions per 5 live births). So in the Western European society, we don't really feel the negative effects of abortion here as it is a "service" if you like, which is used wisely by people. The map below shows Abortion rates as a percentage of pregnancies in Europe.

Source

So as you can see in Britain there is a low abortion percentage, as with France, Germany, Italy, etc...

I would not consider abortion to be a problem that is rife here, it is very much under control (and on a personal note, the only people I know who have had abortions (which admittedly is only 3 women) have done it out of a sensible choice and early on.).

However, the case is that obviously in Eastern Europe abortion is a problem, but the answer to solving this problem isn't to ban abortion, it must lie elsewhere.

Why do I say this?

Because both Western Europe and Eastern Europe have similar levels of legality, but the rates are so different that there must be an underlying factor. 

I can single out certain factors.

One of these is economy. The GDP of the country corresponds almost directly abortions rates, which can be seen on the map below. In countries that have low GDP rates, they typically have a high abortion percentage too. Low income means that these people are less likely to be able to support children. So when pregnancy occurs, they must find a solution, which often leads to abortion. A further factor to this is that eastern European adoption services are notoriously shady, and so it is an undesirable solution.

Source

The second is quality of education. The quality in Eastern European countries are typically below average on education rankings (source) and so this has an impact on knowledge about sex and contraceptives. This would likely result in many unwanted pregnancies, which if you're also living in a country with low GDP (as I shown earlier), it will lead to a high abortion rate.

 

Anyway, to get back to my point. Abortion is legal in Western Europe, but it is not a problem here because we have the capacity to look after and deal with babies from unwanted pregnancies, and the education on contraceptives and sex leads to a greater transparency of information on the subject, so people are more aware of their actions and consequences. People are more likely to get abortions for more severe situations. So I would say in my society (western europe) abortion has been a positive aspect.

Unfortunately Eastern Europe isn't as lucky as us and it has such I high abortion rate that I would imagine it is cause for great concern. Here it could be seen as a bad thing. But the truth is it shouldn't be banned here at all. The high rates of abortion are not because it is legal, but because of many factors that have caused an unfortunate situation. The solution would be not to ban abortion, because that would just force couples to bring up babies they can't afford, or have abortions illegally. It will cause the problem to get worse.

I think the solution is to improve education quality on the matter and perhaps offer small amounts of income support for children being born... Which easier said than done unfortunately.

Thanks for the data. Still though, you must understand the idea that if most western countries are still aborting 20-30% of all births, you are hurting your birth rate by approximately 0.4-0.6 children per family which is right where Europe has dipped under the replacement rate. That is, that if abortion occurred at a rate of 1-3%, Europe wouldn't have a declining population.

I agree (and I mentioned too) that education and economic background have a great impact on why women abort. It is the same in America, too. We do need better education and understanding to help prevent abortions.

I would disagree though on why people get abortions in more 'severe situations'.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html

Has a lot of great abortion statistics. It is good to know that Europe is leading the way on fewer abortions (hurray for Europe!)

According to their data, the greatest reason for abortions is unwanted pregnancies (duh!) as half of all unwanted pregnancies end in abortion (rather than for medical purposes). A correlating factor of why abortions occur is the lack of contraceptives - 2/3rds of all unintended pregnancies occur when a woman is not using any form of contraception.

So I would argue that:

  • Abortions are inherantly bad, as they do cause reduced birth rates in developed countries that need the children
  • Abortions are caused due to unintended pregnanices (which as per any and all reports is the reason behind the majority of abortions)
  • Contraception plays a key factor in reducing the rate of unwanted pregnancies and abortions
  • Education (as you stated) is key, as smarter women have a tendancy to either use proper protector, or give their child up for adoption

I agree that a stipend should be rendered to women that are willing to carry their child to term should there be a waiting list for adoptions. In America, there is a lot of red tape for adoption which may cause a negative perception concerning adoption - which I think is very bad for children.

But I must ask this of you, HighwayStar: Do you believe (regardless of legality) that abortions are a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not referring to legality, only to your view of abortions.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Rath on 19 November 2009

Abortion should be legal in my opinion, for these reasons.

1) I don't believe life starts at conception, the first sign of life in my opinion is the ability to feel pain - this cannot happen until after the 26th week.

2) The world already has more humans than it can support. It doesn't need more.

3) Illegalizing abortions only makes people have illegal abortions.

4) Quite often an abortion will end up screwing up three peoples lives, the parents and the childs. I'd rather wait until the parents are wanting a child than having one forced upon them.



@mrstickball. Your argument about the birth rate is incorrect. Abortion often only determines when somebody has a child, not if they have a child. If somebody has an accidental child at 18, it's the same for the birth rate as if they have an abortion at 18 then have a child on purpose at 21.



rocketpig on 19 November 2009
badgenome said:

No, I think abortion should be legal until the 145th trimester.

Why?

That's why.

You, sir, just won the Internet. Congratulations.




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Rath on 19 November 2009

Also "You need to take responsibility for your actions" is the stupidest argument ever.

If there is a way to avoid facing life long consequences for a silly mistake you should take it, not go "Oh well, it's my own fault". It's kind of like saying that if you get crippled while doing something stupid when you're drunk and there is some easy surgery that would give you the use of your legs back, you shouldn't take the surgery as you need to take responsibility for your actions.



daiyumn on 19 November 2009

I'm sure a lot of ppl dis agrees but..... it should be legal.

People say that we are killing life when we do this?
How about when we eat any kind of meat isn't that killing? sort of?



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mrstickball on 19 November 2009
Rath said:
Also "You need to take responsibility for your actions" is the stupidest argument ever.

If there is a way to avoid facing life long consequences for a silly mistake you should take it, not go "Oh well, it's my own fault". It's kind of like saying that if you get crippled while doing something stupid when you're drunk and there is some easy surgery that would give you the use of your legs back, you shouldn't take the surgery as you need to take responsibility for your actions.

Ah, but your arguing that having a child is a life-long consequence.

No one on the pro-life side is arguing that if you concieve a child, you must bear it, and rear it to adulthood. We are only arguing that the mother needs to carry it to term and put it up for adoption. That is not a life-long consequence. That is a 9 month consequence. There is a large difference there.

Could you please explain the danger of bearing a child, and giving it up for adoption?

Before you answer, consider the fact that women that carry a child to term have a lower mortality rate than those that abort:

http://www.afterabortion.org/news/GisslerAJOG.htm

 



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Rath on 19 November 2009
mrstickball said:
Rath said:
Also "You need to take responsibility for your actions" is the stupidest argument ever.

If there is a way to avoid facing life long consequences for a silly mistake you should take it, not go "Oh well, it's my own fault". It's kind of like saying that if you get crippled while doing something stupid when you're drunk and there is some easy surgery that would give you the use of your legs back, you shouldn't take the surgery as you need to take responsibility for your actions.

Ah, but your arguing that having a child is a life-long consequence.

No one on the pro-life side is arguing that if you concieve a child, you must bear it, and rear it to adulthood. We are only arguing that the mother needs to carry it to term and put it up for adoption. That is not a life-long consequence. That is a 9 month consequence. There is a large difference there.

Could you please explain the danger of bearing a child, and giving it up for adoption?

Before you answer, consider the fact that women that carry a child to term have a lower mortality rate than those that abort:

http://www.afterabortion.org/news/GisslerAJOG.htm

 

It still isn't a good reason not to get an abortion, the reasons for not getting an abortion should be based on whether you consider it life, your opinions on adoption and other such things. Not on punishing yourself for making a mistake.

I can see good reasons for the arguments against abortion (though I personally do advocate it being a personal choice) and can see why people are passionate about it. I just view that as a really poor argument.



highwaystar101 on 20 November 2009
mrstickball said:

Thanks for the data. Still though, you must understand the idea that if most western countries are still aborting 20-30% of all births, you are hurting your birth rate by approximately 0.4-0.6 children per family which is right where Europe has dipped under the replacement rate. That is, that if abortion occurred at a rate of 1-3%, Europe wouldn't have a declining population.

I agree (and I mentioned too) that education and economic background have a great impact on why women abort. It is the same in America, too. We do need better education and understanding to help prevent abortions.

I would disagree though on why people get abortions in more 'severe situations'.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html

Has a lot of great abortion statistics. It is good to know that Europe is leading the way on fewer abortions (hurray for Europe!)

According to their data, the greatest reason for abortions is unwanted pregnancies (duh!) as half of all unwanted pregnancies end in abortion (rather than for medical purposes). A correlating factor of why abortions occur is the lack of contraceptives - 2/3rds of all unintended pregnancies occur when a woman is not using any form of contraception.

So I would argue that:

  • Abortions are inherantly bad, as they do cause reduced birth rates in developed countries that need the children
  • Abortions are caused due to unintended pregnanices (which as per any and all reports is the reason behind the majority of abortions)
  • Contraception plays a key factor in reducing the rate of unwanted pregnancies and abortions
  • Education (as you stated) is key, as smarter women have a tendancy to either use proper protector, or give their child up for adoption

I agree that a stipend should be rendered to women that are willing to carry their child to term should there be a waiting list for adoptions. In America, there is a lot of red tape for adoption which may cause a negative perception concerning adoption - which I think is very bad for children.

But I must ask this of you, HighwayStar: Do you believe (regardless of legality) that abortions are a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not referring to legality, only to your view of abortions.

Sorry MrStickball, I was extremely busy yesterday and today...

Anyway, I agree abortions are inherently bad, I would never advise one if I knew someone who didn't have a good reason. However, I do think that despite them being bad it would be rather more damaging to ban them. We live in a world that has abortion, the technology and the know how to perform abortions exists, you will never get rid of that, if it is banned you would drive abortion underground. If you drive the abortion industry underground then you wont particularly reduce the abortion rate in a significant way (you may get it down from 50% to 30% maybe) and put thousands of women at risk because untrained people will be performing abortions in unsanitary conditions.

Now I'm going to try and rationalise this tailored to your views. You want a significantly lower abortion rate, may I suggest that banning it will not solve this in any way. I think to achieve what you desire, the correct procedure would be to...

  • Extend education facilities to teach about abortion,
  • Increase the help provided and the information given out by family planning clinics,
  • Offer social benefits and childcare tokens to those who are seeking help
  • Promote the healthy use of contraceptives.

I think that these methods will all decrease the number of abortions and unwanted pregnancies in a manner in which you would hope for, without abortion being banned. It has potential to be a safe and clean way to tackle the problem of high abortion rates.

What do you think?

...

As for my personal beliefs on abortion, it is all situation dependant.

My current situation is that I'm doing a PhD and this also means that I'm out of work (it is the equivalent of a full time job and then some), my girlfriend is a doctor and is new to the field. If we found out tomorrow that she was pregnant then our situation would be tricky, in this time of life it would be hard to make the commitment. If my girlfriend pulled out now then the likelihood of her getting back into medicine would be remote, it is a field in which unless you are experienced, it is easy to fall behind very quickly. Maternity in her field would have to be taken a few years after she has been working. I am, how shall I put this, unwilling to leave education. I only have one real shot at it while I'm young and I want to take it. So on that basis, if she told me she was pregnant I would advise an abortion as early as possible* within the first term. However, it is her body so she ultimately gets to make the decision.

However, I'm certain the chances of that happening are extremely remote as we are wise enough to make sure we use safe contraceptives (the details of which I wont disgust you with lol).

(*I say as early as possible because I don't think I could deal with an abortion after 20-25 weeks, I would feel it was too far. Third trimester abortion sickens me, but I still support peoples right to do it (after extensive reasoning)).

Anyway, if in three or four years the same situation happened again I would advise to keep the baby as by then our lives will be stable enough to make the commitment to support a child.