ABORTION.......

real life wrote:

So if abortion was illegal, and the unborn had legal protection and status as a person, what would be your position then?

I would fight like hell to get the law changed. I lived at a time when abortion WAS illegal, and I knew a number of people who had to go to a more enlightened country to have a pregnancy terminated. The people that I knew were middle class, and could afford to go to a clean facility for the procedure. The poor had to resort to coat hangers and back alley butchers.

I think that even attempting to grant legal status to the unborn would be a travesty. I know that there are many, especially on the Christian Right, who would be delighted if that happened.

I object to the term pro-abortion. I prefer pro-choice. No one, but the most muddleheaded, immature, and illogical, would think, "Aw, what the heck. If I get pregnant, I can always do away with it". I believe that abortion is a hard and emotional decision, and never a happy one. Personally, as a young woman, I always said that if I inadvertently became pregnant, I probably would NOT want to abort. Thankfully, that decision never had to be made. But that was MY choice, and I do not believe in foisting my beliefs on other people, which some now are attempting to do.

In other words, IMO, each woman has the right to decide what is best for HER life. Also, IMO, the rights of a living woman trumps the rights of a fetus, every time.

the bottom line is that it is the woman's body, and, IMO, as long as the product of the conception is not a legal person, she has a perfect right to do with it as she wishes.

MA.... Sharing your story took courage and conviction on your part. I applaud your candor and selflessness in providing this background. A terrible ordeal for anyone to go through, but even the more traumatic for a 13 year old child.

For those that claim that only a fetus is being aborted by the pregnant mother.... Consider this.

If it isn't a baby, then you aren't pregnant. What/Why are you aborting?

Frank,

That may be what it is to YOU. To me it was MY CHILD!

Frank,

That may be what it is to YOU. To me it was MY CHILD!

Gee Frank,

I guess since Intrepid was talking to me there where the MA is, I must have misunderstood

For those that claim that only a fetus is being aborted by the pregnant mother.... Consider this.

If it isn't a baby, then you aren't pregnant. What/Why are you aborting?

That may be what it is to YOU. To me it was MY CHILD!

I was not talking about YOUR CHILD, MA...so stop the shyt.

Abortion is a kind of genocide.

Planned Parenthood is a big supporter of abortion rights, but don't forget Planned Parenthood's founder Martha Sanger wrote that she favored birth control and sterilization to get rid of the poor and undesirables. You can read about this in her Malthusian Population Doctrine and in the Birth Control Review- 10/1926. (The following was taken from a letter to the editor) "The next time you hear someone bragging that Sanger's Planned Parenthood provides birth control and abortion to the poor, remember this, it does so not out of any love for the poor, but because it was founded on a doctrine that holds the poor in such contempt that it hates to see them reproduce."

Many women I know who support the right to an abortion do so out of a compassion they feel towards those women whose pregnancies may present a hardship for them. I prefer not to get into arguments over that. I understand their reasoning, but I hope they can at least see beyond the euphamisms for what abortion really is. I choose life.

Rush Limbaugh said he was against abortion because it "cheapens life". He was once confronted by a pro-abortion advocate who told him that abortion was necessary to prevent a child who is terminally ill or deformed from suffering. Mr. Limbaugh told that person that life is full of suffering. Everyone suffers, we can't avoid it. If we justify abortion to avoid suffering then why should anyone bother being born at all? Life can be hard sometimes. Choosing life can mean hardship.

Designer families are possible in the U.S. With abortion people can pick and choose when to have their kids, decide on how their ages will be spaced and can rid themselves of unwanted and imperfect children by early prenatal detection of mental and physical defects. I read an article in the paper where scientists were claiming that in a few years there will be a "cure" for cystic fibrosis and other genetic diseases. This will be accomplished by the in-vitro fertilization of the egg so that the genetic make-up can be examined and any imperfect embryos can be discarded down the sink drain. Is this a "cure"? It sounds like genocide. Imperfect people would be denied the right to be born. It's a dilemma. Given the choice between having a healthy child or an unhealthy one with genetic defects how many are going to pick the unhealthy one? I'll tell you one thing for sure, this isn't a "cure" for these diseases.

Here are some more reasons pro-abortionists have said we need abortion. We need abortion to reduce the number of babies born with drug addictions and A.I.D.S.. They say we need abortion for the poor to keep the number of babies born on welfare down so that our overburdened welfare system doesn't become more strained. They feel abortion is the answer, the "cure", for these problems.

A few years ago I watched a documentary about an abortion clinic in India . India has a problem with overpopulation and poor. In India a man has greater value than a woman. It has something to do with their religion I believe. I forget exactly how many abortions were performed at that clinic- one hundred? two hundred?, yet I was shocked to hear that only one of those abortions was performed on a male fetus. Genocide. Women are expenable because they aren't valuable. If the family was poor and couldn't afford a lot of children and the child was female then it was the most apt to be aborted.

When we make exceptions for killing it puts everyone at risk. What is to prevent someone from making you or your kind an exception?

Sorry to jump in only on page 60.
I personally would never have opted for an abortion,
yet I am pro choice, as I would never be that presumptuous to decide over the body of another woman.

With that philosophy in mind, I counselled at Planned Parenthood for a number of years. The three PP offices I worked out of, were all in a desirable neighborhood and the majority of women were white college-aged women who opted for an abortion.

So the majority of Planned Parenthood's are not in poor
areas where minorities are prevalent. On the other hand, I am certain there are several PP offices in Alabama in a minority prevalent area, as they are in more affluent neighborhoods in Connecticut.

Unless you can prove an inherent racism of Planned Parenthood, I'd be very careful with statements such as yours. Perhaps you should rephrase them as your opinion only, real life.

Thank you!

Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2 1/2 times as likely.

Women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all abortions

57% are economically disadvantaged;
88% live in a metropolitan area;

Abortion is a common experience: At current rates, about one in three American women will have had an abortion by the time she reaches age 45. Moreover, a broad cross section of U.S. women have abortions. 56% of women having abortions are in their 20s; 61% have one or more children; 67% have never married; 57% are economically disadvantaged; 88% live in a metropolitan area; and 78% report a religious affiliation. No racial or ethnic group makes up a majority: 41% of women obtaining abortions are white non-Hispanic, 32% are black non-Hispanic, 20% are Hispanic and 7% are of other racial backgrounds.

Vacuum aspiration (the suction method) is the most common type of abortion. It is a surgical procedure that involves anesthesia and can be performed within the first trimester of pregnancy. In vacuum aspiration, the cervix (bottom part of the uterus) is gently "dilated" (opened) about a quarter-inch, a narrow tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix to the uterus, and then contents of the uterine internal lining are vacuumed out. The procedure takes only a couple minutes and the woman can usually return home later in the day.

Abortions are more rare in the second trimester, which begins in the 13th week of pregnancy. In these procedures, a medication called prostaglandin is generally given in a clinic. This results in uterine contractions, which can last some hours, and usually is accompanied by some anesthesia. Many doctors who will perform first-trimester abortions will not perform them during second trimester; women may need referral to specialists with greater experience here.

Third-trimester abortions (after 24 weeks) are reserved for severely deformed fetuses or for when the mother's life is in danger.

The unborn obviously resides within the mother and is desparately dependent upon the mother for safety and well being, but the unborn is biologically not part of the mother's body.