Abortion

@ January Rose
I generally stay out of this stuff, but saying women who get pregnant and want an abortion should "face the consequences" really really rubbed me the wrong way. Why?

Because I want you to be nineteen year old me for a few minutes. You're on birth control and you're in a sexually active relationship with your boyfriend of four years. You fund out he's been cheating on you for the last year of it. You end it. A month later you find out you're pregnant. You've been on birth control for the last three years. You're halfway through your first year of college. The minute that little thing reads 'pregnant' all you can think is a mixture of 'how?' And 'my life is over'. So you sit there and cry, because the guy who is responsible is in the Caribbean with the girl he was cheating on you with, your best friend told you she would never speak to you again if you didn't carry it to term, your family cannot afford to take care of a child, and you personally are not mentally stable enough to handle the burden of carrying this thing you used birth control to prevent happening. So you contemplate suicide. You wonder if there's enough of your parent's prescription sleep-aids in the cabinet to end it. Because you know in your mind that if you have to carry that thing for nine months you will not survive it. Your mental state is not strong enough to handle it.

And then, one person comes along and sits you down, and tells you that maybe you need to consider your own well-being. Maybe if carrying it to term even to put it up for adoption is going to destroy you mentally and emotionally, you should get an abortion. So you sit there and realize for the first time "Why the hell does no one worry about the mother's well-being?"

So you do it, because its whats best for you and you know good and well if you would have had to "deal with the consequences" that fetus wouldn't be the only thing gone.

So I had an abortion. I used birth control; I WAS careful and I still got pregnant. I hope you realize how much nerve it took me to admit this, and how saying that women who get pregnant should have to "deal with the consequences" is cruel because it takes no consideration into how it is going to affect them.

I felt this had to be said because no one ever seems to take into consideration the woman who is pregnant. Its all about "saving" the fetus. What about saving her? I can tell you right now if I would have had to carry it I wouldn't be here right now. Would attempting to carry it to term really have been worth my life?

@ LettersToNormandy
Thank you for sharing this. I'm sure it must have taken a lot of nerve to do that.

I agree with you completely; people who are out to save the fetus do not think about the mother. Would they really feel better knowing the mother would carry the fetus to full term if the mother does not wish to live to carry it to full term? Is 'saving' one better than letting two go?

The phrase "there's never a 'good time' to have a child" is so stupid because it makes it seem like if a woman becomes pregnant, she should think, "Well, I'd never be ready for this anyway, so might as well keep it, even though I mentally or physically am not ready."

drumonster.:

Pro-life: I know what's best for you.
Pro-choice: You know what's best for you.

Exactly!

What is it that people who are pro-life think? Women are just going to run around getting abortions? No, it'll be that a woman gets to decide whether to get an abortion or not once finding out she's pregnant. Which choice she chooses is honestly nobody else's business since it really doesn't have anything to do with them.

Unborn in America is a documentary on Netflix. If you've ever wondered how pro-life groups can be so stubborn and anti-science... this is a documentary that gives you a lot of perspective. I've just been sitting here raging the whole time, but at the same time I can't help but feel sorry for these young people because they're being manipulated by the generation before them.

@ Kurtni
This documentary was very biased. I didn't like it and I didn't like how they only gave examples of "radical" pro-choice people (a woman who slapped a protester and got arrested, a guy who said he took women he impregnated to their abortions multiple times per week, etc.) but showed that the pro-life movement is so "gentle."

Name Of Misery.:

@ Kurtni
This documentary was very biased. I didn't like it and I didn't like how they only gave examples of "radical" pro-choice people (a woman who slapped a protester and got arrested, a guy who said he took women he impregnated to their abortions multiple times per week, etc.) but showed that the pro-life movement is so "gentle."

It's not biased, pro-choice views and leaders just aren't the subject. The documentary was produced by a pro-choice directors. It's not a documentary about the abortion debate as a whole, it's not meant to be a balanced perspective, but specifically about the pro-life movement and their ideology without censorship or correction. (ie, if the history channel shows a documentary about Nazis and their beliefs, it doesn't mean the history channel is biased in favor of Nazi's, they're just educating the public about what they believed, awful things included).

I think the director said it best when he said "The biggest challenge was convincing people that this wasn't a pro-life or pro-choice film, that it was a film meant to understand the cultural motivations, tactics, and world view of one of the most controversial social movements in American history [pro-life movement]." This documentary started filming during George Bush's election/presidency, when he used anti-abortion rhetoric as a talking point every chance he got to win the religious vote, which is what inspired it.

I also didn't think any of the pro-choice people they showed were what I would call "radical". (Have you ever been to a pro-life protest on a college campus? Everyone heckles and yells at them like that guy was, if not more aggressively. As far as the girl hitting that guy, I don't think she even considered herself an activist, she was just a citizen disgusted with the pictures they were showing. A peaceful March for Women was also shown...)

They interviewed people who bombed abortion clinics, stole aborted fetuses from planned parenthood and showed disgusting images of the holocaust and dead fetuses all over the country, and a college class making a joke out of rape victim's abortion... I don't think there is anything "gentle" about that.

They also did occasionally correct blatantly wrong things stated by interviewees in the onscreen text (ie, when the protestor claimed abortion causes breast cancer). If anything, those little text asides show this is not a positive or favorable depiction of the pro-life movement.

@ Kurtni
When you put it that way... it makes a lot more sense. I guess I was just finding the wrong things when I watched it.

Name Of Misery.:

@ Kurtni
When you put it that way... it makes a lot more sense. I guess I was just finding the wrong things when I watched it.

Yeah, it makes me very uncomfortable to watch something like that because no one is telling them they're wrong, they get to think their opinions are factually sound and moral because the only people they listen to are other pro-life people.

My basic beliefs on abortion are that I know what is best for me. Not you, not your friends, not your church, not your government. Me. And I absolutely despise when people pull the minor card for incidents like the Nebraska court thing. I'm a minor. I know that. I also know that, after thinking long and hard about it, if I happened to get pregnant tomorrow or anytime soon, I wouldn't keep the baby. I am not mother material, especially not at my age, and no one has the right to try and force me to be because if I know anyone, I know myself, and I know that would be harmful to both me and the baby I'd be trying to raise. It's even more ridiculous when people do the same thing to grown women - you can have a stable job and be well-off and still have other reasons for getting an abortion. People act like money and relationship status and the like are the only factors to take into consideration, when mental and physical health are just as, if not more, important.

What I hate the most about the whole debate, however, is the fear-mongering. I know several people (most of them extremely religious) who are absolutely, completely pro-life, but for all the wrong reasons. There's a huge difference between being pro-life because you believe it's the right thing to do and being pro-life because you think you're gonna develop cancer if you get an abortion or something like that. People just aren't informed enough about abortion, due to it being such a touchy subject, and that results in the public believing a whole lot of bullshit that skews their opinions drastically one way or another with flat-out falsehood. What I think we really need is information to be broadcast to the public, accurate information about abortions and the pros and cons of whatever choice you make.

I disagree with abortions. Yep I'm relgious but that is besides the point, I'm not "deeply" relgious I know I'm not if I was I'd wack people over the head with a Bible and scream in their ear how there all going to hell... Which I defintly don't.. to me thats twisting it though... You dont have to be like that relgious to know your beliefs and know you stand by them... I was born from a teen mom and luckily I wasn't the prodigy of rape, only a broken condom between two lovers.
I've heard of why it should be done like finacial problems, rape, forced, etc..
Well one forced is just horrible! Wether your forced to keep it or get rid of the baby.
It also seems you will face emotional damage with an unwanted baby no matter the choice keep, adoption, or abortion. So as the well being for mothers? It's gonna suck either way if it's a unwanted baby.
I watched a few Pam stenzel episodes and she's know a speaker also a prodigy of rape and was adopted. She loves her life an knows her mother is probably hurting from the loss of a child. She's very happy though her mother had not choose abortion.
The movie October baby was also interesting because the actor of the mother had a abortion an has been hurting from it and the main female actor had been attempted abortion.
So as abortion can be unhealthy what happens if the baby isn't succesfully terminated and is born early and lives? It will now face a lot of health problems that it could have avoided.
I understand abortion if it's the mother or babys life on the line! I understand that completely. People will say that i'm hypocritical to accept that but not it fully I see it very different though, if someones life is on the line. Exactly as I was saying as someones life (babies) is on the line during a abortion.
Also I read a true story wear a young girl got pregnant and was going to get a abortion. The man wanted to keep the baby he pleaded and looked everywhere for some kind of help. He said he would take care of it she would have no ties or have to pay anything he just wanted it. His arent would have helped finacially too. You know what the abortion center said? "You have no opinion" he lost his first child to abortion. So another thing is if we decide to have an abortion then I think the other partner in it should have opinion. Of course you think not though cause it's her body her choice... But it is however not yours alone baby...
A mother left to be a single mother I always hate to see the coward of a "man" leave when he finds out always wanna say "grow up"... Now this is for both of you if your old enough to have sex your old enough to face the consquences...
Now rape? *sigh* I hate it.. I completly do seeing as my mother had almost been raped at 15... What to do if the baby is a prodigy of it? if it'll leave to much scars, to much traumatize? A thing from the monster... A baby is half the mothers DNA never forget it is not just the monsters baby... You will still be traumatized even after it's dead, so why take it's life? Never forget the monster is what did that to you the baby could not help it, he could not stop it... It just seems wrong to take an innocents life...
Now I DO understand why people would and do! I'm 16 and thinking of having a baby now terrifies me, I'm not finacially stable to care for a baby but I already know I'd never give it up.. I mean I am only growing up myself :/ but it doesn't change my mind that I think it's wrong...
I think the only thing that gets me about abortion than doing itself is people refusing that it is life! Wether inside or outside it's life.. an abortion is death (murder) but people refuse to acknowledge that so the guilt is lessened... Get an abortion I care but i'm not going to stop you from making your choices! Just accept it's life.. Wether it's a liable or not... it's life.. take a tadpole out of the water it dies.. with death there had to be life first? correct?
Take a "fetus" out of the stomache it dies, like I said... where there is death there was life... So that's my many thoughts on abortion xD

@ Obsessed22
If that guy didn't want to get a girl pregnant, maybe he should have used protection. It is not right or correct or "agreeable" to hold a woman's body hostage for nine months. It also leads to damage for the fetus/potential child. It leads to back alley abortions. It leads to suicide. Getting rid of legal abortion does not get rid of abortion. It just creates desperate women willing to do anything so they are not held slave to the government and individuals who believe they are better off as human incubators than actual thinking, rational people of society who are capable of making their own decisions of about their life, body, and family planning.

If you are a feminist and you are against abortion, I do have to question how much you really think of women if you think they aren't better than life support for babies they don't want.

@ drumonster.
See I can agree because when I think of it I always think "It's my body" which I understand it doesn't make it right though.. someone using drugs saying it's their body there damaging doesn't make it right.. Also it is not only the mans fault for the unexpected pregnancy if she didnt wanna get pregnant she should have made sure herself or took birth control, both are at fault.
As for holding a body hostage? That will probably be the saddest thing I've ever heard a woman say... Well obivosouly if you or any woman think that then defintly not ready for a baby.. So maybe if the babies a result of broken condom, birth control didn't work, etc.. then you shouldn't have a abortion you made the choices and so did the guy so it's called "woman" and "man" up.. Now if it's rape.. I cannot honestly say I only ever had an "almost" sitution and knowing how much that scared me, I know people who actually got raped have to feel a lot more terrfied but maye I'm the only one to actually feel bad for the baby because whether it's unwanted, unplanned, forced upon, etc.. It's still life and taking a life (unless it's aleady dying) it just doesn't seem right... Of course theres the argument about how it could come into a abusive family, poor family, etc... Even children wanted sadly will end up there... One example David pelzer he was born into a loving family that slowy turned very abusive...
Some may say I'm letting emotions get in the way, well duh! I'm human it's what we do we live on emotions exactly why people get abortions because of feelings..
Oh and hold on "they are better off as human incubators than actual thinking, rational people of society who are capable of making their own decisions of about their life, body, and family planning." Some people say that and there wrong I know that.. Which is why I will state my opinion to a friend if there getting a abortion but I will not constantly nag and make her feel horrible, because in the end it wont be anyone opinion but hers... I still think the man should have say though because like I said not just hers... unless it was rape then he should be stripped of any right and fed to piranhas...

Mmm just because I'm feminist doens't mean I have to believe everything hardcore feminist say is right for example.. Feminist thrive for equality with men yet I do not see any equality in abortion between the two..

@ Obsessed22
If you give a person a gift, it is theirs to do with what they will. The second a guy's come is inside me, he no longer has claim to it, I'm sorry. If he's that worried about it, he shouldn't be putting it into MY body.

Forcing a woman who doesn't want to have a child to go through nine months of pregnancy IS holding a woman's body hostage. There is no other way to put it. You are taking her body and using it against her will to incubate a potential child. You are putting her at more of a risk than she would be at if she had an abortion. She would be at risk of suicide, depression, not to mention the fetal risk of being born to a woman who doesn't want a child. Lower birth weight, not great nutrition, unwanted/unloved.

It isn't a baby when it's in my womb. It's a fetus. It's a potential baby. It has no wishes, no life, no family, does not know love, does not have feelings, does not have bills to pay, does not have to worry about feeding another mouth, does not have to deal with depression or Bipolar. It is less of a life than a cow is and it's perfectly legal to kill those. Terminating a pregnancy is not the same as cutting of a child's head or beating it to death with a hammer.

I don't think anyone, man or not, has the right to hold a woman's body hostage for nine months.

For someone who thinks women deserve equal rights, you certainly don't think they are smart or capable enough of deciding if they are willing or able to go through with a pregnancy in their life. Somehow you just know that you, a sixteen year old girl who does not know them, knows better.

Obsessed22:

It also seems you will face emotional damage with an unwanted baby no matter the choice keep, adoption, or abortion. So as the well being for mothers? It's gonna suck either way if it's a unwanted baby

Could you tell me where exactly you got the idea that you face emotional damage after an abortion? And please don't quote movies or tv shows. Because I personally have met people who have had abortions and I can tell you right now for a fact that they don't regret it at all and have no 'emotional damage' after their abortion- unless you count relief and a chance at living her life emotional damage?

So yes, some people will struggle but not all. So no, it's not 'gonna suck' either way.

drumonster.:

@ Obsessed22
If you give a person a gift, it is theirs to do with what they will. The second a guy's come is inside me, he no longer has claim to it, I'm sorry. If he's that worried about it, he shouldn't be putting it into MY body.

By that logic, men have no parental rights or responsibilities at all. A human is a little more complicated than an iPod or ugly sweater.

@ Kurtni
Not at all. If the sperm is given the potential to turn into a child, that is different than a sperm currently formed into a zygote. Yes, a gift is a person's to do with what they will, but if I give a child a b.b. gun for a Christmas present and don't teach them how to use it, I should be held responsible if they shoot the neighbor kid's eye out.

It all depends on what becomes of the so called sperm "gift".

Obsessed22:

It also seems you will face emotional damage with an unwanted baby no matter the choice keep, adoption, or abortion. So as the well being for mothers? It's gonna suck either way if it's a unwanted baby.

Emotional damage? What about the financial damage? It costs around $10,000 to have a baby, and that's AFTER insurance. If there is a last minute complication and the mother needs C-section, add another $5,000 to that. No, I'm not guessing or assuming. These are real prices. A first-trimester abortion is, most of the time, less than $500. Once it's done, it's done. If a family can't afford to raise a baby, what makes you think they can afford to have it in the first place?

I personally am very pro-choice and don't really have any respect for people who are pro-choice. I believe people with a uterus should be able to do what they choose with it. It's unrealistic to expect teenagers and adults to do everything society tells them to do and having no control over your own body is torturous

To be honest, I went to an extremely catholic college -ran by nuns, prayer every day, a school Chaplin, the whole nine yards - and I remember being in a "Relationships" class one day which was ran by the head of RE and we got talking about abortion and how it was right or wrong and the teacher turned around and said that she believed everyone should be given the choice as she believes that not everyone goes out to have sex with the aim of getting an abortion, and yes I know that there is people who see abortion as a form of contraception but, there is also people who do not take the decision lightly to have an abortion and I think in this day and age people should be allowed to have the option. Child birth is a huge deal and bringing a child into this world is a massive decision that shouldn't be taken lightly, and neither should abortion but I hand on heart believe that people should be allowed that choice because if you can't give a child what they need, sometimes abortion is a better option and that might not be a popular view but it is my honest opinion. Just thought I'd throw my 2p in.