Abortions are unpleasant experiences which in many countries are made extremely difficult to get, even when they're still technically legal. Nobody in their right mind would use such a thing as contraception - not when there's so many effective methods easily available.

I shouldn't have to criticise a pro-choicer on their thinking, but I'm staggered by this belief some people seem to have that there's women out there who get abortions like some people get coffee. Yes, there are people who've had quite a few abortions, but they're a minority, and I doubt even they see that as an alternative to contraception.

Also, people often seem to forget that women in stable relationships with children also have abortions. A happily married/cohabiting woman and loving mother can have a condom split in the heat of the moment, find herself pregnant, and decide that she can't support another child.

Abortion = it's not just about the dreaded sluts.

I have mixed feelings on this.

If an unfit person is to have a child and will bring the child into a world of drugs, sex, and abuse, then they should be allowed to abort as well as get fixed so they will be unable to reproduce.

If a child will be born with horriable birth defect and they don't expect the child to live a life without daily pain, then I would say yes.

If people use it as a form of birth control, I would have to say no. Its not the child faults that thier parents weren't be responiable, but then I have to go back to my first point.

Adoption is always an option but then again adoption is a scay thign and many people who do adopt do it for the wrong reasons.

I'm torn with this topic. I feel its right for so many reason and yet so wrong on stronger levels than the right.

Most people do think its wrong and look down on people who are pro-choice but perahps we don't know the situtaion that would make want to abort.

I do think some countries are over populated and should do soemthing about it and maybe abortion would be the only thing that could if the people of that country refuse to be more careful....

Okay now I'm just rambling about things that I woudl take into consideration about making abortion an open choice to all and so on.

Ah, but it's not a child. At least, that's what it's all centred on. An aborted foetus is, in the majority of cases, a damp little ball of cells that looks more like a tadpole than a human. (In the later stages, it does look more like a baby, but as I've said before, late abortions are usually emergency cases.)

As for how it's done, there's multiple ways. In some cases, they dilate the woman's cervix and scrape out the uteral lining, removing the attached foetus.
There's also pills that can be taken, inducing a miscarriage.
None of it's exactly a walk in the park, but it's apparently statistically less dangerous to a woman than giving birth to a fully-developed baby.

I don't think people ever really give consideration to that--that yes, abortion carries risks, but so does birthing.

I think abortion is okay only if the girl is going to die or anything of the sort.

Exactly. Its punishing the masses for something only 10% of population would abuse.

I think that abortion shouldn't be chosen to be illegal or legal by the government. I think that it is the woman's body and she should be able to do what ever she wants to it.

Two questions for Nissa and divine_lil_brat:

Why should all women be punished because you feel it's unethical that a small percentage of women use abortion as birth control?

If the small percentage of women that use abortion as birth control are too irresponsible to even use contraception, why do you think they should be entrusted with a child?

And a few more for divine_lil_brat:
So you think that if someone is considered responsible, they should be forced to have a child they don't want? How does only taking away the rights of productive members of society make any sense whatsoever? If I lived in a country with a rule like that, I'd start doing crack the second I hit puberty.

And who decides who's "fit"? Do you realize that this is only a stone's throw away from the "unfit" being forced to have abortions?

Oooh, are we getting onto sterilisation of undesirables now? That kind of thing is a slippery slope towards all kinds of unpleasantness - it's such a debating cliche to bring Nazis into this sort of thing, but that's what that form of eugenics is most closely associated with. It's not a far leap from sterilising a section of a populace to getting the job done faster and just executing the lot of them.

please tell me why "A twelve year old girl can't take care of herself let alone a child. " is a valid reason and a 20 year old (for example) or older isnt?

after all if its simply "people who were too lazy" that sould not be alowed to get abortions then why oh please tell me why didnt the 12 year old use a condom?

and any ways... is a person that was too lazy to use a condom really a good person to be made into a mum or dad? id hate to be that kid, if it actually survived living with them.

all you seem to have done is thing about the pregnant person. not the kid thats going to be born.

personally i would rather have not been born than to make my mum and dad struggle even more if times were down for them!

end of the day, its a choice. you cant legaly have an abortion when the child to be has gained feeling, and think of it this way, they wouldnt be there any ways.

im going to end my post before i keep going and going and i'll just say this.

ask your self this! if you were in there situation what would you do? its oh so much easyer to just say "oh id keep the child" without giving it any thought but really, untill your in that situation you have no idear what you would do!

i just pray you dont end up getting pregnant some time and find out first hand that every thing you expect isnt isnt real!

abortion, its up to them to decide, there are a number of different reasons why they may be pregnant! they could have even used condoms but slipped up some how. its up to them to decide if having the child is a good idear of not!

Unless the mother is in a position of loosing her own life I beleive it should not be allowed but then again that is my own opinion however for those who said it has no life while in the womb what happens when the babies survive the abortion treatment(which is rare but happens) and have to be finished off after being extracted? Or why is it that a 2 month baby is worth less than a 9 month baby if they would have been just the same had they waited? If you are not willing to kill a premature baby outside of the womb why would you kill a baby under development inside? You can say you would rather abort than take the chance of putting the baby through adoption which could cause mental disorder but then it is your choice to take that risk or kill what could have been a perfectly fine human being. Even those with mental disorders are human beings, have feelings and should be thought as if anyone else.

The reason I am against it is because my cousin has comitted it twice and I think it is by far her iresponsibility that has brought the end to what could have been two human lives. Although I understand that pregnancy may occur to even the most responsible people through rapes among others.

I am not a woman and I am not going to go deep into this debate but this is basically my opinion and I can undertand how pro-abortionist can counter each of my points and can only encourage their right to do so as it is appropriate in debates.

I think abortion is the choice of the mother in all cases, along with the father if he is somebody who actually has been and will be around. But sadly, I think even if the father thinks the baby should be born, the mother's disagreement is an override, or vice versa. Reason? It's the woman's body, and the father should not be able to decide what she does with it. Now, if both parents want to come to a compromise or talk it out until there is an agreement, then go for it, but ... I make sense, I hope.

Now, I think the stuff about "well, only in some situations blahblah" is crap. If you want to live by that, I don't care, but to tell others they have to live like that, screw you. Look, I have a friend who, right now, at seventeen nearly eighteen, could get pregnant right now and she would make it work, she's said so herself. But, at the same age, I wouldn't do it nor be able to. No way, no how, and no Texas, I don't want five hundred dollars to keep the child kthnxgoawainao.

Also, if anybody has ever told you a baby has a heart beat by 18 days, they're wrong whether they know it or not (compare the word of the church and the word of a college level science class. Who do you believe?). The truth is the heart begins to form on the 18th day. It's basically like saying that because a car began being built on August 29th at 8am you could drive it cross country on August 29th at 8pm.

Now, I understand some people's problem with abortion is when does life begin, and that the heartbeat doesn't necessarily mark the start of life. However, people have changed the fact of science on this one for their own sake, and it severely pisses me off, so I just wanted to say something here in the hopes that it would correct people.

Well I think its wrong if you don't have a seriously good reason why you shouldn't keep your unborn child instead of get and abortion, See know if you where raped I would see it totably reasonable to as in why they would want an abortion because they have a choice to keep the baby that the man who raped her inpregnanted her with. Thats just my view and if you don't like them whatever!

Abortion should be allowed in the first trimester, regardless of the reason. However, it should also be allowed in cases of rape, incest, health risk, and also if the parents found out that the baby would have a degraded quality of life because of some defect that didn't show until later. In cases of financial instability or just being an idiot and not using protection, I think that the woman should give birth, but give the baby up for adoption if she didn't want it.

I think in any circumstance a women should have the opportunity to have an abortion. You may say that she shouldn't because she was too 'lazy' not to wear a condom, but what's to say that she wouldn't be so reckless and lazy to take care of the child when it's born?
I honestly think a women's body is her own and ultimately she has the right to choose. I've had some male friends get their girlfriend's pregnant and really try to persuade her to have the child, but if the child isn't going to be 100% loved and accepted without a doubt into this world, I see no point of why the women shouldn't make her own decisions.

@poorlyexecuted:I love you.

There are two sides to it I mean...what if a teenager has sex and gets preg. and decides I don't want the baby and gets an abortion...I think that's wrong. The teen screwed up and should reap the consequences.

But say a woman with a family and her own kids gets raped and gets pregnant...I believe then that the baby should be aborted. :(

Majin: Babies are not a punishment. They are a life!

Ultimately it's punishing the baby too, possibly more than the parent. The child is coming into the world with a parent who is a child themselves, won't know all the psychology to raising a baby, won't have the patience someone ready for children will have. At sixteen, you're barely qualified to take care of yourself let alone a small life. And as for the line of, "then they shouldn't have sex if they can't stand the consequences," look, people make mistakes, period, and as pointed out before, the people who use abortion as a form of "birth control" are so small a number they can't even really be factored into the big picture!

The whole rape/incest exclusion sounds reasonable, but ethically, it's quite peculiar.

Presumably, if you are opposed to abortion, you believe a foetus is a living human being, and hence an abortion is murder.
If that is the case, why would murder be justified because the mother didn't consent to sex? If you accept there's reasonable exceptions to the 'abortion is wrong' rule, then logically, you should accept that abortions done for 'selfish' reasons can't be that bad either.

Though that said, the idea of abortion as murder does lead to some interesting developments. How long should a woman be imprisoned for abortion? How are we gonna imprison the millions of women who do have abortions? What about the doctors who provide abortions - are they not more at fault, as the actual 'killers'?
I hasten to add, I DON'T think abortion is murder, I'm just saying it makes an interesting thought experiment thinking about what would logically follow from that viewpoint, and what those opposed to abortion actually advocate.