Daleth

Phil, if you're referring to my previous post, it was not about the permissibility of abortion in general, but a reply to blondegoddess's comments about late-term abortions. Late-term abortions are a matter of extreme situations.

Also I think we would still have debate over it, if people really honestly believe the fetus is a person that should have full equal human rights. We do not allow euthanasia as a matter of human rights. If there would be no debate about whether euthanasia should be allowable for a fetus but there would still be debate over whether it should be allowable for a 70-year-old man, then we don't think the fetus should have the same human rights as a 70yo.

No. A lot of the time they are not viable. A lot of the time they die. They die after finding a suitable host almost as often as they survive. Sometimes the thing that finds a suitable host is not even an embryo ("blighted ovum" if you know the term). Many ova that are fertilized and then manage to implant have absolutely no chance of ever becoming a human being.

fatherphil

not you in particular, its just the general practice of debating a general condition with extreme arguments. also i'm sorry about your cousin.

Daleth

I see. Well, I meant only to add a second extreme condition to the one BG had already mentioned. I wouldn't consider late-term abortions acceptable in anything other than extreme conditions. The average first trimester abortion is a different kettle of fish, and I don't think it requires extreme conditions to justify it.

Thank you, but I never knew him. Not a word was even spoken about him until something brought it up probably 25 years later when I was an adult.

abe smith

All this-here discussion(s) is based -on the silly premise that (our) human words ARE "real' things and that (our) words equal (and can be manipulated as-if they ARE) the non-verbal real (e.g. biological) entities onto which we affix our artificial
word-labels.
In order to effect human (prescriptive) laws so as to demand or to forbid certain human behaviours, ( in order that some human beings can *control* other human beings's behaviours) we have to reify our labels = make the manmade labels into fake-real
"entities". Un-ungh! The labels ARE NOT realities.
My point here is that in (e.g. biological) development(s) there ARE NO um turnstiles; that (biological) developments flow as continuous (uh, dendritic) processes. For this reason, the damned theologists"s et al"s efforts to fix before-&-after points in
biological developments (e.g. "When does *Life* begin?" "When does a zygote become a human being?") is arrant foolishness.

The would-be controllers/lawmakers WANT and NEED there to be such "turnstiles"; but those DO NOT exist ; and those persons's attempts/efforts to assert that turnstiles DO exist is crapola.

beth

Hi Daleth. I was hoping someone else would mention this. I think it is up to the parent on this. Personally, I would not wish to carry a child to term like this, but I might if it were already in a late stage of gestation. Hoping, perhaps, there would be something that could be done. I do not judge others that have to come to this very hard decision and I feel for them. News of a baby often brings such hope and joy, having to terminate a pregnancy after the nursery is done and the family is anxiously expecting is very, very hard.

I went into labor with my daughter at five months as a result of stress. I had labor pains every ten minutes till I had her three months and five days later. I was terrified to lose that little baby when I had already gotten to know her through her kicking and stretching...

This is definitely a personal decision...

HelenM

Whether she would have been allowed or not, I hope women are never forced to have abortions if they don't want to, even if tests/screening indicate that the baby almost certainly has some incurable health problem.

And, for what it's worth, I don't see that it would necessarily ruin the lives of siblings to have a sibling who died in infancy. I would think that whether it did would be mostly to do with how the parents handled the situation. Of course I don't know how it was in the specific case of your cousins.

In my opinion, pro-choice should never compromise the freedom of women to have their babies if that's what they want to do. I find it hard to believe that no women are pushed into having abortions that they'd rather not have and this does concern me.

Helen

brighid

This concerns me as well, but at least in my own experience I don't find this to be the case with the medical establishment. I find it more the case that women are pressured by their partners and the wretched conditions of society that are at the root of women feeling unable to carry a child to term. I think our energies should be focused on reducing and eliminating the reasons why many women feel the best choice, albeit a horrible one, is abortion.

I am equally concerned about the millions of women who are pressured into keeping babies they don't want, or can't care for. Our foster systems are overrun with children who have been abused, neglected and otherwise maltreated by parents who do not have the emotional, mental and/or financial resources to raise a child. I find this tragedy to be far greater then first, second, or even third trimester abortion.

Brighid

HelenM

Yes, I would guess the pressure comes from partners or parents rather than the medical establishment.

I am concerned about that too.

Helen

fatherphil

but isn't the perception that a solution in the quality of a person's life lies in his elimination rather than improving his surroundings at the crux of the tragedy?

& abe, is there not a point when something becomes genetic individual?

brighid

Absolutely and that is the reason why I say we should seek to eliminate the very real situations that cause women to feel they have no better choice then abortion.

Eliminating abortion will do nothing to improve the environment that makes abortion necessary.

Brighid