DarthMom

I appreciate the feelings of you men who say it is our body and you should just support our decision...but it is just as much your child. I really feel for the guys who oppose their SOs decision if it is abortion.

JerryM

If I were a legislator, or judge, considering the legality of abortion, there are a couple of restrictions I think would be acceptable. I would support allowing abortion after viability (24-25 weeks or so) only for maternal health or for fetal abnormalities not detected earlier. I would also support requiring consent of at least one parent or guardian for a minor, but with a provision for speedy judicial bypass if necessary. I support a woman being fully informed of the complications and potential risks both of abortion and of carrying a pregnancy to term, though this should be just a part of good medical care and need not be written into law. Other than that, I don't think abortion should be criminalized. Being pro-choice does not mean being pro-abortion. Abortion may be a bad decision, but I think it is still basically a private, medical matter between a woman and her doctor. And I think excessive government interference in such matters is a greater evil.

Monkeybot

No, because I think a woman's right to control her own fertility is fundamental -- not a bargaining chip to be traded away.

BrotherMan

I voted no because it isn't any of my business, nor should it be the government's business what a doctor and a patient decide to do within the parameters of their relationship. I think that's a valid stance for just about anything that could be discussed between a doctor and patient.

southernhybrid

I think we should have both liberal sex education and legalized abortion. In a more utopian society than the one we currently have, we may want to limit abortion after the first three months. I still don't feel that it should be restricted anytime soon. I don't care how cold it sounds, the product of a very early pregnacy amounts to a small amount of tissue, To me this is in no way similar to a human being. I don't understand how anyone can get so sappy and self righteous over a stranger's fetus.

Of course it would be nice if people were all responsible users of effective birth control. As a RN who has worked with family planning, maternity and STD clinics in the past, that is a very naive wish. I don't think I need to explain. The human sex drive being as impulsive as it is and all that should be enough to help you figure it out.

I've seen many young women jump on the anti-abortion bandwagon. Perhaps if they had grown up like I did, in a time when pregnant women had to seek illegal abortions which often left them with serious complications or death, they would see the wisdom of RoevWade more clearly.

It's clear to me that the motives of most people that oppose a woman's choice do not want *all* women to be fully liberated in a male dominated society. Women who oppose another woman's choice make me very angry. I think it should be a woman's choice to carry her fetus to term or to abort the fetus if she wishes, ideally in the first few weeks of pregnancy. It's her business. It's a privacy issue and not a governmental one. At least that's how I would like to see it remain. I don't need to rationalize my reasons for this, although I could give you many sound ones. I think women should have total control over their reproduction. TOTAL control! I have little pity for the men involved. Men have dominated things and controlled women since the beginning of civilization. Men rarely take the initiative when it comes to birth control. If they did, there would be far less unwanted pregnancies. I'm speaking of the general population here and not about men at this site who tend to be more educated than most. Women have been subjected to the oppressive dogma of religion and government for far too long. This is one area where women must have the final say! If a women wants to involve her partner, that's her choice, but not her duty, so help me Margaret Sanger.

I've been watching this debate all afternoon on tv and really needed that rant.

Loren Pechtel

This is no compromise at all, it's granting them exactly what they want--punishing the woman for having sex they don't approve of.

Abortion only in case of rape/incest is purely about punishment and not about the rights of the fetus at all.

tronvillain

Absolutely not. In fact, I am in favour of even more liberal abortion laws than exist now - I think a woman should be able to have an abortion at any time for whatever reason. As long as it is living inside of her, she should be able to get rid of it if she wants to.

tronvillain

DarthMom:
Actually, that is not quite how I feel. There is simply nothing that can be done for those who oppose their partner's decision to have an abortion, but we can at least even things out: if a woman wants to keep a baby and a man doesn't, a man should be able to reject all rights and responsibilities to the baby. It is not exactly the same right, but I think it is as close as biology will currently permit.

Kinross

After thinking about it some more i guess the idea is pretty stupid.

My biggest problem with abortion is when do you say its human and when its not. I would like to see less abortions and more people using birth control and not using abortion as their only method of birth control. The statistic that i see is one million a year in the US. This seems very high to me.

tronvillain

Stupid busy server message made me double post.