What do you all think?

Do you think the whole anti-abortion issue is more about being against women's rights or do you think that they really care about a "blood clot"?

 

i think alot of it has to do with religious beliefs..........

 

I'm going to go with Elle on this one. And the confusion, or rather the OPINION of what is a human being and what is not.

 

yup there are...

but then again,,,, most people fall in right extreme or left extreme,,,

n noone can figger out where the middle is...

 

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive because I lost two babies myself to miscarriage, but, it bothers me to hear a potential child being referred to as a "blood clot". I'm pro-choice, and not trying to flame, but geez, that was just poor taste.

 

Im anti-abortion and always will be

Calling a baby a blood clot is just wrong because it isnt.

 

IMO, the whole debate is over when do you believe life begins. Some of those who believe that life begins before birth (or at conception, or some time in between) seem to think their beliefs are more important than anyone who disagrees with them, and wish the law to reflect this. But you can't legislate belief, whether it's religious or otherwise, that is just plain wrong.

 

um. They believe it is a human being..therefore abortion = murder. Do you really think they are going to believe that a pro-choice's person belief matters if they believe its murder?

Not that long ago blacks werent considered human. Do you believe abolitionists were wrong in forcing their beliefs on slave owners? After all, you can't 'legislate belief.' Now, please dont tell me this is different because the slaves were actually alive(human). Pro-life people see no difference between an unborn baby and a fully developed adult.

 

I've heard early pregnancy refered to as "a clump of cells" but never a "blood clot" as there isn't that much blood contained in it.

I am politically prochoice, because being anything else takes away the rights of womyn to make reproductive freedom choices. I, personally, have never had an abortion, even though some of my pregnancies were less than convenient. BUT, I never pregnant from a rape, never from incest, never had a "father of the baby" who was abusive, never had parents who would kick me out, never lived on the streets, and always had health care, including maternity, and had finished college when I got pregnant the first time. So many ways, I am much luckier than many womyn who have to choose to terminate pregnancy.

I've had two miscarrages, too. But, I don't see a womyn in a terrible situation as an affront to my miscarraiges, but I can see where shortly after losing a wanted baby, you might feel that way. You will heal, sister, I've been there. Blessings. (Remember, there are a lot of womyn who feel the way you do.)

 

obviously.

but there are ALOT of people who let religion dictate their personal beliefs, ethical or otherwise and abortion many times falls under this category.

 

um, isnt that a given? Can you be religious and NOT let it dictate(influence) your personal beliefs, ethical or otherwise?

 

I'm Pro-Life.

Want to know what makes me different?

I was the president of a student-run pro-choice group called the Voices of Planned Parenthood. I scheduled and planned rallies and did my best to see that all women had the rights I believed they needed.

And then I got pregnant. And I started doing research and reading books on unborn children, and found that fetuses as young as 12-14 weeks responded to tests performed on them. They FELT and RESPONDED. Making them sentient creatures. I couldn't imagine killing anything, let alone a life that hasn't even had time to show it's true potential.

But back to what makes me different: I see the need that this country has for SOMETHING. What I see this country needing is an all-encompassing sexual education program and free birth control available to every person, regardless. That includes Plan-B emergency contraception. And of course, in my belief, consideration has to be taken if the mother is the victim of incest or her health and life are in jeopardy.

And until the government takes steps to increase sexual awareness and responsibility in the masses, I don't think abortion should be made illegal. But if there ever comes a time when education and birthcontrol availability are to standard in this country, abortion could be abolished and I'd not feel bad about it.

 

um, yeah.

and.....yeah, im sure there are people who are "religious" and do not let their "GOD" or church make up their minds for them on certain issues like abortion. but since the whole real concept of religion is about "worship" and subcribing to a certain belief system I think it's the exception rather than the rule.

 

oh....thought it was in response to my first post

 

thank you! that can't be stresses enough we need better education and more accessable birth control. i'm pro-chioce. i never had an abortion and don't think i could. when i was 14 my best friend had one, she was 13. ya she had no business being sexually active at 13, she also had no sex ed. personally i feel its a choice every individual has to make for themselves. i think it would a big step backward for our country to take away that right. we are still the land of the free...right?

 

Ah its a question of balancing a child's right to life against a mother's right to her body.

 

right there we can see your bias. it's a potential child, an embryo, a fetus, or an unborn child, but it isn't a child until it comes out of the mother's body. And if it isn't a child until after it is born, it has no right to anything, life or otherwise. You see? it all boils down to when does life begin. You can say "life begins at conception" all you want, but I know that's not true. I do not have dozens of dead babies. I had many miscarriages and chemical pregnancies, true, but they were not children. They had the potential for life, they might have been fertilized ova, but they were not alive so they could not die. There's nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise.

 

I assume you'd be against Scott Peterson being charged with the murder of his unborn baby, right?

 

maybe if you just believe in god that maybe true. But if you are 'religious' and believe in christianity, islam, and judaism, you are going to be influenced by them. There are certain crucial tenents you must believe in to be an adherent.

 

Now there's a statement of blind faith. The fact that the unborn are (1) alive and (2) human is indisputable.

"It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoa and the resulting mingling of the chromosomal material each brings to the union that culminates the process of fertilization and initiates the life of a new individual. Every one of the higher animals starts life as a single cell the fertilized ovum. The union of two such sex cells to form a zygote constitutes the process of fertilization and initiates the life of a new individual."
Bradley M. Patten, M.D. (3rd Edition, 1968), New York City: McGraw-Hill.

"The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union into a combined cell, or zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual."
Leslie Arey. (7th Edition, 1974). Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers.

"Zygote. This cell results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of a human being ... Development begins at fertilization, when a sperm unites with an oocyte to form a zygote. Each of us started life as a cell called a zygote."
K.L. Moore. (2nd Ed., 1977). Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers. Pages 1 and 12.

"The term conception refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being develops. It is synonymous with the terms fecundation, impregnation, and fertilization ... The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life."
J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Freidman. . Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers. Pages 17 and 23.

"A human being develops from a mass of living material no larger than a pinhead, material contributed by both parents and capable of living and growing for a lifetime ... This genetic makeup was established at the beginning of your life, when a haploid egg and a haploid sperm combined to produce a diploid zygote, your first somatic cell."
J.H. Otto and A. Towle. . New York City: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1969.

"The zygote is the starting cell of the new individual."
Salvadore E. Luria, M.D. <36 Lectures in Biology>. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1975, page 146.

"It is widely accepted and widely taught that human beings as well as other organisms reproducing by sexual reproduction …this is nothing unique to humans; this is a general biological principle ..start their existence at the time of conception or fertilization, as a single cell, the zygote."
Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, M.D., Harvard Medical School, quoted in the , 97th Congress, 1st Session, April 23, 1981.

"Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite, a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition."
E.L. Potter, M.D., and J.M. Craig, M.D. ., 3rd Edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975, page vii.

"Based on my education and background, therefore, I believe that from the moment of the union of the sperm and the egg in the human species, there is present a new living human being. The human life is there from the moment of fertilization, and its very essence starts early but is not completed until the second decade of life. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood, and that interruption at any point constitutes termination of human life."
Alfred M. Bongiovanni, M.D., University of Pennsylvania Medical Professor, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, April 24, 1981.

"Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being, a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings ... Those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance to the value question rather than the scientific question. No witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of human conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species."
Report of the Senate Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to the Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981, page 7.

"Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra- uterine, until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices."
A New Ethic for Medicine and Society, California Medicine, 113 67, 68 (1970).

See also:

http://standupgirl.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=76