I went to watch a movie, sorry for being absent to respond.

Raeillieagh: As a matter of fact I do believe in a higher power, but one that is much more laissez-faire. Regardless, Abrahamic religion dictates that people still have a choice, and I'd like to have the choice to abort if I want to, thanks.

Ari'iela: I'm sorry you're having personal issues that are causing you anxiety or whatnot, but maybe what you're going through is better taken out in Life Issues instead of here in Debates.

To the thread: I thought of a few things while I was out. As Kris has mentioned several times, abortion is really the only way to end an unwanted pregnancy (whereas adoption implies carrying out the pregnancy, and is not really an end, so I'm going to leave that out as an option at the moment).

There are several couples that use in vitro to try to have children. I'm not very well-versed on this subject, but I do know that embryo are frozen and kept for the mother to use should a pregnancy fail.

Based on this information, I have a couple of ideas as alternatives to abortion (as there will always be unwanted pregnancies, which we can certainly reduce the number of through comprehensive sex education, but not ever completely eliminate).

For women whose pregnancies are ill-timed (for example, Molly, who had to end two pregnancies for the benefit of her current children): why not do research on freezing the embryo to use for later? It'd be like hitting a "pause" button on the pregnancy. The fetus doesn't die, and the woman can still have the child later. I realize that there is likely a strong correlation between the age of the fetus at the time it is removed and the likelihood that it can be salvaged later, but I don't believe that we've hit the technological ceiling on this yet. Cryogenics is still relatively new, and I think this could be a suitable application and a good middle ground for both sides (as most pro-choice women, I'm sure, would like to have children eventually, but under more ideal conditions later in life perhaps).

For women who have already had enough children: remove the fetus and use it for research (which would likely result in the death of the fetus), or put it on the "market" as one would an adoptable infant. I'd prefer the former over the latter, since giving it up to someone else would generate a market for women to produce "desirable" offspring for other people. To think that such a woman would go completely uncompensated in the end (whether legally or not) I think is a little naive, so I wouldn't prefer this option. However, I can see how the same pro-lifers would oppose fetal research, even if it did result in significant leaps in stem cell research that is crucial to understanding how the body works on a cellular level, and eventually, perhaps a cure for different cancers or AIDS. These fetuses would also likely be used to help determine the viability of cryogenically preserving fetuses for the first option, the "pregnancy pause button."

Personally I can't see much of an ethical conflict for the first option of freezing the fetus for later. The most difficult part would be convincing people now to be able to use fetuses that would otherwise be destroyed in an abortion for research on this kind of technology. I'm sure there are a lot of people who find it unethical, but my opinion is that if the fetus would be destroyed anyway, this is certainly a better option as it will contribute to essentially saving lives that would otherwise be destroyed by abortion later on.

I hope my explanation was clear, if you need clarification on anything please let me know!