"An abortion is the removal or expulsion of a mammalian embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced. Abortion as a term most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy, while spontaneous abortions are usually termed a miscarriage. The term abortion may also refer to the aborted embryo or fetus.

Abortion has a long history and has been induced by various methods including herbal abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, abdominal pressure, and other traditional methods. Modern medicine utilizes medications and surgical procedures to induce abortion. The legality, prevalence, and cultural views on abortion vary substantially around the world. In many parts of the world there is intense public debate over the ethical and legal aspects of abortion. The approximate number of induced abortions performed worldwide in 2003 was 42 million, which declined from nearly 46 million in 1995."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion

So, is abortion right or wrong as a whole? Is worth economically supporting? Is it morally wrong? What does your religion think of abortion?

Discuss.

Abortion is a moral choice that has to be made by the individual involved or the couple. If men carried fetuses to term and someone tried to tel them they had no choice, but to have the child, there would be an uproar, but for someone reason men and especially those in power still enjoy treating women like their 2nd class citizens and try to regulate what they can and cannot do.

Remember, if the body naturally terminates a pregnancy, it's called an abortion. Is that ok, because God killed the child or are we gonna set a different standard?

rape and incest abortion okay

under 18 (looking at you palin kid) parents should be notified

as a form of birth control not okay

everything in between grey area, i would rather it didnt happen but i am not a woman

This post was last modified: 09-20-2008 08:18 PM by drew102e.

I'm personally against it. That is, of course, if it were my own kid. Which will never happen (for me being seventeen, and medical reasons). Although-hypothetically speaking-if I were against it, and my parter were for it, it'd be her choice: I would respect it, say that I would have no part in the abortion and we'd be on our merry little way. All in all, I hope I don't sound to confusing and/or hypocritical to say that I'm pro-choice for both sides.

I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Just keep either choice open for when that day comes!

I'm pro-choice. That doesn't mean that I'm for using abortion as a contraceptive, I'm saying it should be available for those who need it. There are many examples of where it can do a world of good. So yeah, I discourage abortion as a means of contraception, but I think it should be available nonetheless.

This thread did not go off like it did on that other forum.

Personally, I'm pro-life. I don't care what the situation, I wouldn't choose abortion.
Rape, incest, whatever.
If it's rape, what does the baby have to do with it? It never asked to be born.
If you really don't want the child, give it up to adoption.
You don't shoot a puppy when you're dog gives birth to one just because it turns out to be a cross-breed you didn't want (metaphor for rape), or simply cause you're not ready to take care of more dogs.

But none of this matters, this would simply be my choice, and my reasoning behind it. Since I'm not a women I'll never have to make the choice, but I'd at least ask my partner to make this choice. A suggestion; in the end it's their choice.
I reserve the right to think it was a bad or good choice too.

I'm going to ask the same question that was asked of Sarah Palin:

Would you like it to be illegal for a fifteen year old who falls pregnant after being raped by her father to have an abortion?

pro-choice pro-choice pro-choice pro-choice pro-choice pro-choice pro-choice pro-choice

This post was last modified: 10-05-2008 10:54 PM by Dave.

I personally think that's a horrible analogy. If said puppy was going to be born with such a debilitating illness that it would be forever in pain, wouldn't the humane thing be to put it down? You're also completely excluding the mental pain the mother is put through having her rapist's baby.

Anyway, I'm pro-choice. It should be the Mother's decision as to what happens to her body.

This post was last modified: 10-06-2008 08:55 AM by WCEFan.

You just turned it into an enthusiasm question.
Totally different discussion. Just for the record, I'm against enthuensia. Killing them is always the easiest option am I right?
I'd dwell deeper into the discussion but that'd just get this thread offtopic.

I think you're forgetting me saying it's the woman's choice.

Euthanasia - QUICK, SOMEONE MAKE THE THREAD.

I'm all for babies. Where the baby has the potential to be born without any serious repercussions on the people helping to bring it into the world, I think abortion is wrong. Then again, while I might say I believe it's wrong, I wouldn't make it illegal. The mother should always have the option to have a safe abortion... making abortions illegal would result in an increase of the dangerous "backyard abortions"... bad idea.

I try not to post in the debate threads because I'm married and can argue anytime I want just by looking at my wife the wrong way but I'm bored so I stopped by to have my say. In the past I was very against abortion but over time I can't say that I am anymore. I am somewhat but not completely. I think that if a woman is not careful and gets pregnant then she should have to have the baby and pay for the bills of delivery. She can give the baby away, put it up for adoption or whatever to a family that can't have one of their own. If a woman is raped however, then they should have the choice of aborting. I don't see how anyone can be against that. I know some people say we don't have the right to choose who lives or dies but yet we still have the electric chair and lethal injection.

^ You raise an excellent point. For someone to be truly "pro life", you'd have to be not only against abortion, you'd also have to be against the death penalty, war, and the killing of animals.

"Pro-life" is just political framing until you put down that rifle, withdraw from this war and turn off the electric chair. Until then, call yourself what you really are:

Anti-choice.

Not really. I was just offering another dog metaphor [which I should have made more clear I guess] for a baby who may be born into a world where it would suffer a short life of extreme pain from a debilitating illness. Would you not agree that abortion would be the more humane option in this case?

This post was last modified: 10-07-2008 01:59 AM by WCEFan.

^That's still euthanisim.
But I'll still answer it anyway.
How do you know they'll live a short life? Or that there won't be treatment, or a possible cure during their lifetime? By those standards, it would be ok to let teenagers commit suicide because they're feeling so depressed for not getting a date for the prom. May be an extremely different situation, same moral values apply.
It's called hope; how would you feel if you aborted your child because of an illness diagnosed from an ultrasound; and then find out after the abortion that the images from the ultrasound where not as they appeared to be, and by looking at the (now out of body) fetus they could tell nothing was wrong with it?
Or that there was an illness, then 3 years after the abortion there was a complete cure?

One more, how do you know the ilness won't go away by the time the fetus is completely "transformed"?
After all, abortion is only possible in what... the first 3 weeks of pregnancy?

Is 3 years of pain not worth 70 more of possible happiness?
This is all hypothetical of course.




And for the record, I am against War, and the death penalty.
Animals? War and death penalty have to do with humans; animals are a whole different ball game.
And I'm sorry to say, have nothing against the value of a human life.

I don't see why you're considering my point as arguing for Euthanasia.  

You've made a huge jump here. You can't possible compare the agony of someone with a terminal disease to someone who couldn't get a date for the Prom. Doctor's generally do know what they're doing, they don't aim to go out and kill people. They aim to do what's best for the patient, and if a disease is not known to be curable or not on the verge to being curable then there is little point leaving a human suffering in a vegetative state. You're just pre longing the inevitable, and just causing suffering to the one involved.

Even if a miracle cure was suddenly discovered for the illness, it would require 10+ years of testing and refining before being given approval for use in the outside world. That's to long for most of the cases we're talking about here.

As I've said above Doctors know what they're doing. They won't say "wow that ultrasound looks a little odd let's do an abortion!". You'd always wait for clear evidence before taking any drastic action like an abortion.

I don't have the medical knowledge to answer that question, sorry.

Nope, you can have an abortion up to the first 23 weeks, maybe more.

If only things were that simple though.

I would add more to this, but I have a bit of Uni work to do. =[

This post was last modified: 10-08-2008 06:03 AM by WCEFan.

At the moment this topic is under debate in Australia, and I'm pro-choice. The discussion came up briefly today in my "Greek Philosophy" class as we argued about Aristotle and his boring moral virtue blah blah. And yeah, I'd say that it's up to the woman to choose, if she chooses to abort. Then I think she has every right to. If she chooses to keep it then she could go ahead and do that to.

Pro-choice here. Don't think restrictions would help, you'd get more of those horrifying BACKYARD ABORTIONS. And we don't need those, it's safer to have the option there.

This post was last modified: 10-08-2008 06:31 AM by RemonJin-X.

Mind you, I've never said I'd like abortions to be illegal, or that the woman shouldn't have a choice.

So, are we stopping the suffering of the carrying mother? Or the baby fetus?
Cause honestly, fatal illnesses aren't diagnosed through ultrasound, deformations (physical and mental) can be semi-diagnosed through ultrasound.
And most of the time these people can live semi-"normal" lives. Who are the ones that have to care for them? The parents.
The main reason they abort is because they don't want the responsibility of raising a handicapped child (it's a lot of work after all) and that is something I don't approve of. It in the same level as aborting a healthy child cause they simply don't want the responsibility of taking care of it.
"Let's kill this problem so we won't have to deal with it" Seems primitive no?


Once again, I'm not against choice. I understand some extreme cases; but if it's just to make it easier on the parents.. what does that teach you about them?

As expected, a female-concern has become a dude-fest...

Cause guys have absolutely nothing to do with getting a woman pregnant. Let her deal with it; am I right?
If you feel like taking part in the thread, how about contributing?