Abortion as birth control is unrealistic. It costs 500+ dollars and leaves you unable to work for at least 2 days, and emotionally damaged for years afterward for some people.

I've had 2 abortions. I also have a 7 year old daughter. I was never raped, and all 3 of my pregnancies where with my husband of 10 years.

My first was during birth control (pills) but 3 weeks after I had taken heavy antibiotics for a sinus infection. I wasn't aware, as most people aren't, that antibiotics can lower the effectiveness of birth control. At the time, I had 2 jobs, my husband was going through school and we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment. We where scraping by, and knew that, while we wanted children, we couldn't afford to have one. Both of us decided adoption wasn't an option. I'm a very emotional woman and tend to dwell on things for years. I still think about bad things from 20+ years ago... having the baby and putting it up for adoption would have put me at risk. It sounds selfish, but emotions play into it more then anyone realizes.

The second one was 2 years later. We had considered having a child, I went off birth control, but we continued to use condoms. Then I lost my job and my husband broke his leg in a car accident. We didn't know if the insurance would deal with the bills, we didn't have a car and no money was coming in. We kept using condoms but had a slip. I didn't know I was pregnant til I went to the doctor to get more birth control pills and, as always, they had me take a pregnancy test that was positive. We waited 3 weeks for news about insurance and bills, because we WANTED the baby.. but in the end, we knew we couldn't care for it, and aborted.

a year later I got a better job, the insurance paid out and we got a bigger apartment.. and decided we could have kids, and went to work right away. Gwen is now 7 years old, and I'm on birth control shots until we've decided it's time for another one.

There are MILLIONS of reasons for this decision. I feel mine where justified. I knew what the responsibility was, and knew I couldn't live up to it. I knew there would be emotional scars, and chose the ones I could deal with. I do, on some level, regret not having those children, but it's not a nagging feeling, I know that the daughter I have now is happy and healthy and cared for, where as the others would likely be living in a homeless shelter with me.

When I was young, my family was very poor, and I took care of my brother and sister the best I could, being the oldest. I dropped out of school to work and help pay bills, I cooked them dinner and made sure they got to school every day. My mother had me when she was 16, and looking back, I often wonder what would have happened if she had aborted me, and waited to have my brother and sister. And I know if I could go back and choose, I would have asked her to do so, for them, so they could have a better life then we had.

I strongly oppose abortion. I absolutely hate it. It is wrong and I consider it as murder.

First of all, you say that a 12 year old should get an abortion because she may not be able to take care of the child, but I believe strongly that a 12 year old should not even be having sex. And if they are going to take the responsibility of having sex, if they get pregnant then they should have to take THAT responsibility as well.

Secondly, it is just plain wrong that just because a person accidentally gets pregnant that they use the escape from having that responsibility. If they can not care for the baby, then they should find a woman, or even man that can take care of the baby. There are many people in this world that do not have the blessing of being able to produce a baby, and they would happily take the responsibility of having one if they could. If you do not want the baby, then you can let it LIVE and grow up with a different happy family.

Thirdly, I consider abortion to be murder because the child may not have breathed in the air from this Earth, but it is still a living, eating and breathing organism! It GROWS and Develops. It becomes smarter and has a heart beat. I consider it murder because it is not the baby's fault that it was made. It isn't the baby's fault that someone else can not take on the responsibility or just doesn't want to have it.

I find that it is very wrong. I think only in very bad situations that abortion should be allowed. Such as, if a woman IS raped or because it is a life and death situation.

I don't understand how someone could go through with the process of killing something so small.. something that doesn't no any better.

IT is that person's choice to have sex, it is NOT the baby's fault that it was created. So the baby should NOT have to suffer for what the parent regrets!

You do not have to be so rude to me.

This forum is for opinions. For your personal view. I did not down someone else's post. I did not say, "Hey! What the hell is wrong with you [insert someone's username here]." No. I simply stated my opinion.

There is no rule against stating your opinion. This is what I think and how I think and I think it is wrong of you to contradict me so harshly.

You support abortion, and I don't. Okay. No need to point me out and say I'm an effen retard for not supporting killing an innocent life.

I didn't say adoption as in orphanage home, what I stated was finding someone to care for your baby as soon as it is born. Have you ever watched Juno? The movie is a bit boring, but she knew she couldn't care for it and she was going to go for an abortion, but she changed her mind whenever she knew she could find someone else to care for the child.

And if a 12 year old did get pregnant why couldn't she search as hard as she could for someone who would be willing to accept and care for her baby instead of just killing it? Hmmm.. because it's easier to just go through the procedure than it actually is to take the time to look for a willing parent.

I didn't say that a parent did not regret getting an abortion. I did not say that they would get pregnant because birth control failed.

Please do not bring up subjects I did not even suggest.

I read the post above mine. Yes, she had good reasons, but how good can a reason be to actually kill a baby? I could understand how she said that in the situation sh was in it would be hard to care for the baby, but she could try to find someone who is willing to help her out. A friend, her parents, someone. The government offers all kinds of support systems and lends out money. There's always welfare too.

I am sorry that my opinion didn't please you, but there was no need to be so harsh.

I'm not aiming this at anyone, just want to bring up a few points.

1) You can not and will not know what your true the feelings regarding abortion are until you are put into the situation where it is an option.

(Mind everyone, I use the word *you* in all this, but am not referring to any one person. It was just easier then saying "A Person" every time.)

Looking in from the outside, a lot of things are questionable. Welfare is a good example. Those who appose it almost never need it, and don't see the good it does for those who truly do. Those who appose health care reform don't worry about the extra 200 dollars a month that low income families have to pay when their jobs don't offer subsidized insurance. And when you look at a homeless person.. you might not agree with them begging for money, you might think they should get a job.. but you have no idea what they are going through until you have BEEN in their situation. I don't think anyone can clearly make a call based on evidence when they haven't experienced any them self. You can base it on perception from the outside, on religion, on personal morals or whatever they want to place your faith in, but it's still an outsider looking in. To experience the distress and fear of a situation like aborting a possible son or daughter is not nearly as cut and dry as "Is it alive" or "What would god do" or "Can I give it up for adoption" (not quoting anyone, just giving general arguments). It's a complex series of questions that can take weeks or months to answer, and you're on a deadline, making it harder.

I have a history of depression and 4 suicide attempts from before I met my husband.. The simple fact was that, in a situation where my child was adopted by another family, the very thought of them might have driven me to another attempt, and that wasn't a risk my husband would take. Things like this are never added into an outsiders point of view. I do hope those here apposing abortion never have to look from the inside, out.

2) Because this was brought up, I will say it. But Velvet, I am not trying to degrade your point of view, just express my own. The world isn't like the movies. Adoption isn't always an option. In a perfect world, a mother would walk into a agency and say "I'm having a baby, find someone to give it to" and then get paid for the next 9 months while they sat on their behinds waiting to give the kid away. This isn't realistic at all. In the real world, a woman has to pay money to be profiled with an agency. Then they have to be screened and drug tested, they have to give a background on the baby's father, and their own history. And the sad truth is.. a mixed child is less likely to find foster parents. A woman who used drugs might not get sponsored at all, and a rape case might have no hope of adoption. In a perfect world, none of these would be factors. But the world isn't perfect, and adoptive parents can afford to be picky. This leaves the pregnant mother nothing to do but wait to sign the baby over to the state, at which point it will go into foster care before it is placed, IF it is placed. And that brings me to my next point.

3) When a woman is pregnant, she can NOT work safely for the last 2 months. If she's at a fast food joint and the manager is willing to over look it, maybe one month, but there WILL be a time when the woman will be without a job, without income and, if she's alone (And a lot of mothers are) she won't have any way to care for herself. A lot of states offer free prenatal care, if she's lucky, she won't have bills when it's all over, but that isn't always the case.

I had 2 jobs when I was pregnant the the second time.. I lost a job, my husband couldn't work, and I knew that if I had a baby I wouldn't be able to work and my husband couldn't support us. This played a lot into the decicion.

Yes, family support is an option, if you have any. Friends are always helpful, but you can't always rely on them. In a perfect world, every woman would have someone behind her, able to support her and her kid.. again.. the world isn't perfect, and some women are on their own.

There's a lot of things that need to change before we have the perfect world we all want, where no child is motherless and no fetus is aborted, for now, we work with what we have and do the best we can for ourselves and for the future.

I really want to go into keeping a child rather then aborting it.. the choice is always there, and you have to look into the future when deciding. Will the mother be able to finish her education? Will she be able to support the child? get and hold a job? Pay for daycare? Or find someone willing to watch the baby when she works? Will she be able to support herself at all? Is welfare an option? In the long term, will the child be properly raised and cared for? It takes a strong person to realize they can't care for a child.

I could keep going on and on, but I think this is enough for now.

@Velvet nowhere in Kaz's post did they attack you, I've kept up on this thread for ages, and Kaz is not one to ever attack, if you think someone countering your points and presenting a valid argument is an attack, then maybe you should not try to go into a debate.

That said, I agree with much of what Kaz and MollyJean have said. For many, it's not easy to go out and find a willing couple who wants to adopt your kid, if that was the case, then there should be no children in foster care. My thoughts are also if there are soo many couples out there wanting children to adopt, then they can take on a foster care child, instead, they wish for only a newborn, white baby that can pass as their child from parents they know the entire history of.

A 12 year old girl does not have the resources available to her to find a good couple willing to adopt, and remember "Juno" is a movie not real life. Not to mention if said 12 year old pregnancy was a product of rape or incest, that makes it even worse on a child, let alone a women, to carry a child.

Abortion is not an easy procedure, as you can see from women who have posted about it, it's not a decision you wake up one day and decide to do. It's one that each women has to weigh carefully. When going into talk about having it done, no one other than the doctor and women is allowed in the room, that way the decision is that solely to the women. I've known several women who have had abortions, and not one of them described it as a easy, pleasant experience. It was one of a tough decision, and weight thoroughly to make sure it was a right one.

As said, the world isn't rainbows and there is not a willing couple to adopt every child. In a perfect world, every child would be brought in a loving family, but it's not. We have an over flowing foster care system and too many people not willing to take on these children.

Girl,You Have A Point...But Not A Clue


Abortion's Wrong.

Keep Your Slot Machine Closed Till' You Can Handle it.

The Child Shouldn't Suffer Because You Did Wrong In God's Eye's!

You Should! What if your Parents Aborted You?

Or Your Grandma To Your Mom?

Or Her's To Her's And So on.

:sweat:

I know. I forgot to be aware that others are not always in the same situation or live at the standards that I may live in. I was a little hasty in my choice to say that you were rude to me. I apologize, but sometimes I seem to get all huffy in debating just because I don't like it when people oppose me and I do like arguing. I did come into this thread, being fully aware that someone is going to argue against my points.

As for welfare, many people are on it where I live. And many teenagers I know are getting pregnant by accident, and all of them as had their baby and has had friends and relatives and even the government to help them care for the child. And all of those babies are fatherless.

I hate to cut this short, but I have to go.

WTF? I truly hope this is sarcasm.

Do not make such broad statements without backing them up. "Abortion's wrong"? Abortion's okay!

Sound like a valid and convincing argument?

Why should someone have to cease having any form of a sex life to appease your morals, not theirs? Should sex only be for the rich who want a child? What about married couples who don't want a child? They shouldn't have sex because you think a possibility of what they may do is wrong?

The woman shouldn't suffer because someone did wrong in your eyes. Women shouldn't have to have their rights taken from them because you view something as wrong. Leave religion out of this.

If I was aborted? I wouldn't have known, nor would anyone who had known me. That is a moot point and an emotional appeal. I ask you to leave those out of this.

And yet aren't many points in the abortion debate, on both sides, emotional appeals?

"Think of the baby."

"Think of the woman."

And so on.

I think my sig says it all as to where I stand. And I have heard\read many arguments for and against abortion (just finished reading through the last two pages here, in fact). I was on fire for Pro-Life a year ago; then my resolve got shot down when I thought of people being angry with me about my choice. Now I am still kind of jittery when I think of people disagreeing with me (perhaps loudly\violently), but as people have said before, life is not all rainbows, unicorns and happy dancing flowers. People are going to get pissed at you at one point or another in your life; it's inevitable. I'm working on promoting the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity at my university now, and since my university is both Catholic in founding and has many liberal-thinking students attending, I know I'm going to both get support and be spit upon (hopefully not literally, but you never know). I believe that this is God's will, and I hold his will to be higher than my own or anyone else's. Note that I am not bashing anybody here, just stating my opinion.

Thanks for letting me spill here.

If you're against abortion, that's fine and dandy. If you think your god is against abortion, good on you. Let's let both sides of the discussion come together and try to reduce the number of abortions.

I have no qualms with any of that.
However, I do hope, like Kah, that you don't hope for making abortion illegal; you have every right to think they're wrong, and you should be supported in making them less needed, but I don't think you have any right in taking away women's choice.

That is why I disagree with pro-lifers, not because I think abortion is dandy.

Asking someone to have empathy (i.e."hey! you might put women out on the street because you're too blinded to other opinions!) is not an emotional appeal, but to ask someone what they would think if their mothers were aborted or if they were are emotional appeals because1) fetii don't have emotions and 2) you wouldn't have anything because your mother was never there. Those are appeals because they're irrelevant or impossible.

@Kah--yes... I could hardly be all, "Hey, participate in this event\way of thinking," and then be all, "Nooo, I don't want to do it myself!" If someone does that sort of thing, it makes me double-take and go, "Eh? Why should I do it if it's obviously not important enough for you yourself to take part in it?" So yeah. ^__^ I am going to take part in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity.

@Kris--I'm sorry--no, wait, I'm not--but I am for making abortion illegal. I don't think that women should have any say over whether babies in the womb should live or die--or that anyone should--because it is not "their body." It is someone else's who is living inside them temporarily. Living without a doubt should be a concrete right no matter how old the person is; that's what I think.

Before I go back and read anything else, I'm going to address this.

I already said.. if my mother had chosen to abort me, my younger brother and sister would have had a MUCH better life. If I where able to make the choice for her, I would have said do it. :)

Secondly.. This is a debate forum, unless you have something constructive to add, please stay in the General Discussion forums?

Added

Because I did get to go back and read the rest. I don;t believe a fetus is a person, a baby or a living thing, it's a cluster of cells that have the POTENTIAL to be a person. If every potential where to be given a chance, masturbation, first off, should be outlawed. And menstrual cycles taken advantage of EVERY month without fail.

This is my opinion, and apparently, the opinion of the government, who doesn't define and fetus as a living person. If you believe God says it is, the I admire your faith in the matter, but the separation between God and State makes this a mote point.

As said before, if you want to lower the number of abortions.. don't protest the act, reduce the reason. Hold a sex education rally instead.

My friend (Kriddles) and I were discussing this in our OOC thread, and at one point she stated "In my opinion, every child needs to be given a chance to live. Whether you take care of it, or give the baby up for adoption... No child in my eyes deserves to die because they are born from sin. They are innocent and naive to the world. All they know is love when they come out. Not hate. And all they ask is for love in return.".

I basically agree 100% with her, except for cases where the child bearer is too young to bear a child (i.e. your twelve year old girl example).

And maybe a fetus isn't 'out in the world' and such, but it has feelings, thoughts; It moves, kicks, etc. During pregnancy it survives because of its mother. Personally I do think fetuses are living, and don't deserve to be killed. Just to clarify, I'm talking late-term pregnancies, like 3 months due from the birth date kind of thing.


Edit: Personally, I'm not going to scream and shout at someone because their ideals and opinions are different than mine because they're just that - opinions. The only way we decide what we think is 'right' and what's 'wrong' is through our morals and ethics, and not everyone's views are the same. So yeah. It's a whole 'respect my opinion, I'll respect yours too' thing.

I thought I would bring a little light to one side of this debate. Adoption.

My husband's aunt, we'll just call her 'Mary', lost her ovaries and uterus to cancer when she was about 25. She can't have any kids of her own, never will be able to. She has a good education and a good job, as does her husband. They own a home and are very well of, coming from a wealthy family. She's now about 45 years old.

Mary and her husband decided years ago to adopt. This was just after I had my daughter, so we'll say about 7 years ago. She signed up on lists for adoption with the state, but found out she couldn't get the baby she wanted, just a toddler or older child, so went into private adoption firms working with mothers who where still pregnant and looking for families for their unborn children.

It took them 5 years to find an already pregnant woman who fit the criteria they where looking for. A woman with a build like Mary's. With dark curly hair, fair skin and brown eyes, and the baby's father had to be at least 6 feet tall with a muscular build, fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair, like Mary's husband.

5 years of searching before they found the right child. They signed the papers and sponsored the girl, and when the baby was born, they whisked it away as their own. Their perfect child. We, the family, were told that they hadn't decided if the baby would be told he was adopted or not, so til the choice had been made, it was to be kept secret. He's 2 and a half now.. and his skin is a little darker then they expected. But aside from that, he looks exactly like Mary and her husband.

6 months ago, the adopted a daughter. Again, the parents where strictly scrutinized to get a perfect match to Mary and her husband. I'm not sure how long they looked for this one, but knew they had been wanting a girl for a while. This time, the baby looks exactly like Mary, down to the nose and the way she smiles, and if you didn't know she was adopted, you would never be able to tell.

They bypassed thousands of children because they wanted something that was THEIRS and nothing else. And this is how it works a lot of the time, adoptive parents have the money and power to pick and choose. They chose not to take a baby that was a product of rape, of interracial relationships, of unknown father. They chose not to take a child who's mother was under 16, because the risk for birth defects was too high. I don't agree with any of these things, but then again I'm not wealthy enough to adopt.

This is how it works in the private adoption agencies. And state run is no better, the babies get sent to private agencies right away and no one wants the older children. The truth is sad.

@Fabby--I do support making abortion illegal; killing someone who is defenseless and totally helpless, just because it's convenient for someone else, or because "someone else" thinks that death is what's best for them, has no justification whatsoever in my eyes. I also must admit that I've never given "what I'M going to do about it" any thought, because I wouldn't be the one making all the decisions about it. I have the power to express my beliefs and to try to make other people aware of them, but I do not have the power to make them set-in-stone reality, as I am not the President, nor am I Congress, the House, or any other governmental power (talking about US powers here; I'm aware not all of us live in the US). Even if I were to be the one making a "plan," how could I as one person make such a colossal decision to be carried out on my own? I'd have to consult with others who are of the same mindset as me, and even those who are not. As such, I think that this question is a moot point.

@Molly--if your point was true, wouldn't that mean that "cluster of cells" would have the POTENTIAL to turn into a lizard, an orangutan, a deer, etc? "Potential" means "possible," meaning "not certain." So it's uncertain whether or not a pregnant human woman would give birth to a human baby, an elephant baby, or an ocelot baby? That's like saying an acorn has the POTENTIAL to grow into an oak tree, a beech tree, a pine tree, etc.