Abortion

[jesse_rocket]

Last I checked, Prostitution was to gain money. Yes, I do find that loveless. This is in fact my opinion. I never said it was fact.

 

And I don't appriciate you saying that my opinion is ridiculous. You wouldn't like it, so what makes you think that I would?

 

Thing is, the way you said it "Actually, there's a word for it. It's called prostitution." in direct response to hbtbrk's "Having sex without loving the person doesn't make you heartless." was pretty much giving the implication "all people who have sex with someone they are not in love with are prostitutes".

 

Plus, the use of the word "actually" pretty much does imply you're putting it down as a factual correction.

 

If that is not what you meant, you might want to pick your words a little more carefully, to avoid being misunderstood, because this discussion is fast sinking into the realm of the nonsensical.

[hrtbrk]

Last I checked, Prostitution was to gain money. Yes, I do find that loveless. This is in fact my opinion. I never said it was fact.

 

And I don't appriciate you saying that my opinion is ridiculous. You wouldn't like it, so what makes you think that I would?

Never once did I say your opinion was ridiculous, but this entire "argument" is and remains so because you refuse to directly respond to anything being refuted to you.

 

We've been in this spot before where you state your opinion as fact; and, so we don't have another "every underage person who drinks in the state of New York becomes an alcoholic" moment, I'm done with our offtopic conversation and hopes the thread gets back on track. :)

 

LOL awe... Ninja'd by Rose hahaha

[Unstream]

Guys, can we drop this whole prostitution/love thing? It honestly has nothing really to do with abortion. Dish it out over PM if you guys like, but I'd rather just talk about abortion and listen to what others have to say than have to skip through half the posts full of irrelevant content.

Sorry about backseat modding. Not my intention - I just want a good discussion on our topic.

 

But yeah, I think Macabre (a.k.a. Katy? I know I've seen that set before. If so, hi Katy! Haven't seen you in a while :P...oh wait, back on topic...) had a good point, with the whole fetus being a living human. But how do we define when it is alive? I mean, apparently, technically a baby isn't considered alive until it takes its first breath, but a baby is definitely human before then instead of a multi-celled blastula. But when would it be considered human, and a living one? That's why I've always been on the fence; I can't say if I'm fully for it or against it, because pro-life people may very well be speaking for those that don't have a voice. I just know that I don't want people's opinions forced on others, which is why I've been pro-choice.

 

Of course, you could always question the idea that every human has the right to life. I mean, consider what happened at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden during WWII...

But that's a whole 'nother debate, isn't it?

[Kuroida]

wow. I think we're branching way off now. I have no clue where we are XD

 

And neopets does not support abortion. Why? Because they've banned the word on the site....

[Shanes12321353 from neo]

Umm.. No. No abortion. Its killing babies. Could be a future president, maybe a future druggie, but who's to say? is that your right? To take any human being from the world? It doesn't matter if they can feel it. The world may pay for it later. The world needs all the minds it can get.

[Masaryk]

Proper abortion kills masses of cells that might otherwise develop into babies. Babies can survive outside of the womb. Early fetuses cannot.

 

That said, I don't agree with late-term abortions, unless maternal health or the health of the future baby is at risk.

 

I believe that women should have the choice of a safe abortion, if their circumstances deem it necessary. In my mind, this doesn't only include cases where maternal or fetal health is at risk if the pregnancy is continues or cases of rape. I also think that unwanted pregnancies should be terminated, if the circumstances of continuing the pregnancy could potentially bring harm to the fetus though an unhealthy pregnancy. Not every woman has the means or the know-how to carry a fetus to term. Some people live in poverty and cannot afford proper nutrition to ensure the development of a healthy baby. Some women have alcohol and drug addictions. In both of these cases, these babies would be likely to suffer from disabilities stemming from poor maternal health. Even adoption would not allow those children to live healthy lives.

 

I don't agree with abortion being used as a primary method of birth control for the following reasons. Firstly, I think it's rather irresponsible to make the choice to have sex with another person while ignoring all potential, high-success-rate methods of birth control. I've heard some people argue that "sex sometimes just happens." While that may be true, it shows an overwhelming lack of maturity (or lack of education) to "accidentally" engage in an adult act without thinking about it in advance. I truly believe that proper sex education is the greatest defence against unwanted pregnancy, but in the cases where such education is ignored, birth control is ignored, and fertilisation takes place, abortion might be a good option, as the mother is possibly lacking the maturity needed to have a healthy pregnancy. This does not only apply to teens; I have known more than enough 18+ people that lack the skills necessary to have a healthy pregnancy.

 

Secondly, abortion is a medical procedure. All medical procedures have risks. These risks should not be taken lightly. It is still possible to become seriously ill or die from a "safe" abortion. No medical procedure is risk-free. As a primary form of birth control, I don't believe that it would be worth the risk of a serious infection that could lead to future infertility or death. Some people might be willing to take that risk, but I am not. Proper birth control in advance seems like a better choice to me, even if it can be a bit expensive.

 

If other precautions taken fail, and a woman still becomes pregnant against the odds, it should be her choice to decide how to best handle her situation. Yes, I think that adoption is a great option, if a woman lacks the means to raise a child, but I can understand that some women may have life circumstances that make a pregnancy harmful to their lives. If the symptoms of pregnancy were so crippling that a woman couldn't go to work to support herself, and her developing fetus, I can understand that termination might be necessary. Not everyone has the privilege of living in an enlightened country where worker rights are protected.

 

While I wouldn't be likely to have an abortion as a means of birth control, I would never want to deny a woman the legal choice to terminate a pregnancy in a safe manner. Women will seek unsafe abortions if no safe options exist. I never want to see a woman put in a position where she might choose to do something that could lead to death or disfigurement if a there is a safe option that could exist.

[Macabre]

 

But yeah, I think Macabre (a.k.a. Katy? I know I've seen that set before. If so, hi Katy! Haven't seen you in a while :P...oh wait, back on topic...) had a good point, with the whole fetus being a living human. But how do we define when it is alive? I mean, apparently, technically a baby isn't considered alive until it takes its first breath, but a baby is definitely human before then instead of a multi-celled blastula. But when would it be considered human, and a living one? That's why I've always been on the fence; I can't say if I'm fully for it or against it, because pro-life people may very well be speaking for those that don't have a voice. I just know that I don't want people's opinions forced on others, which is why I've been pro-choice.

 

Of course, you could always question the idea that every human has the right to life. I mean, consider what happened at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden during WWII...

But that's a whole 'nother debate, isn't it?

 

Haha, yep, it's Katy. xD Good to see you!

One of the main reasons I'm against abortion is that the moment that one becomes human can never really be factually proven. And I place a very high value on life. Which is probably why I've come to be a bit of a pacifist and leaning towards being against the death penalty. But as you said, that's a whole other debate. :P

[CAV of Gang Green]

Umm.. No. No abortion. Its killing babies. Could be a future president, maybe a future druggie, but who's to say? is that your right? To take any human being from the world? It doesn't matter if they can feel it. The world may pay for it later. The world needs all the minds it can get.

 

The world needs all the minds that it can get? 6 billion minds aren't enough? People are complaining about overpopulation as it is.

 

And what if the baby will be born with a fatal infection that will kill it and the mother hours after it's born? You are better off with abortion.

[Unstream]

Haha, yep, it's Katy. xD Good to see you!

One of the main reasons I'm against abortion is that the moment that one becomes human can never really be factually proven. And I place a very high value on life. Which is probably why I've come to be a bit of a pacifist and leaning towards being against the death penalty. But as you said, that's a whole other debate. :P

Yeah good to see you too xD. You should get back on the HOP again sometime.

But yeah, I can completely agree with what you're saying, which is why I've always been on the fence.

But I guess my question is, if others don't feel the same way, is it still right for us to dictate their actions and ban abortions?

 

And yeah, the future president argument is really weak. We're looking at a 1 in 360 or so million chance here. Odds are, they'd be just a normal person.

[jubinator]

wow. I think we're branching way off now. I have no clue where we are XD

 

And neopets does not support abortion. Why? Because they've banned the word on the site....

 

Then they don't support sex either, because I'm pretty sure that word is off-limits too. I think they banned it because they don't want people talking about it in front of children on their site, no matter what their opinions are.

[Kuroida]

Children can't even go on the boards without parental permission....

 

 

The world needs all the minds that it can get? 6 billion minds aren't enough? People are complaining about overpopulation as it is.

 

And what if the baby will be born with a fatal infection that will kill it and the mother hours after it's born? You are better off with abortion.

 

You're wrong Cav....try 9 billion XD And yeah. Right now over population is a huge problem. Just look at places like India and China. Even with the one child policy chinese still take up 20% of the world pop.

[Macabre]

Yeah good to see you too xD. You should get back on the HOP again sometime.

But yeah, I can completely agree with what you're saying, which is why I've always been on the fence.

But I guess my question is, if others don't feel the same way, is it still right for us to dictate their actions and ban abortions?

 

And yeah, the future president argument is really weak. We're looking at a 1 in 360 or so million chance here. Odds are, they'd be just a normal person.

 

Yeah, I'll probably pop in sometime. (:

 

That's really an interesting question with a LOT of ramifications. For example, I could say that I don't think shooting up heroin should be illegal and it's not wrong. So who's to tell me I can't?

 

Basically, I think the job of the government is to make laws that follow two main laws.

1. Do not encroach on other people or their property. 2. Do all that you have agree to do.

I think that most laws (at least the ones I can think of) that fall outside of these two categories is an infringement on the rights of the individual.

So, bringing this all back around to abortion, you'll have to decide for yourself whether or not banning abortion would encroach on another person (the parents), or allowing abortion is encroaching on another person (the fetus/child.)

[CAV of Gang Green]

And yeah, the future president argument is really weak. We're looking at a 1 in 360 or so million chance here. Odds are, they'd be just a normal person.

 

Agreed. She says that it could be a future president or future drug addict. Sorry to say this, but the baby would be more very much more likely to be a drug addict than a president.

 

Several people have used that arguement, and there's so many flaws in it that I burst out laughing, dispite how rude that is.

[Unstream]

That's really an interesting question with a LOT of ramifications. For example, I could say that I don't think shooting up heroin should be illegal and it's not wrong. So who's to tell me I can't?

 

Basically, I think the job of the government is to make laws that follow two main laws.

1. Do not encroach on other people or their property. 2. Do all that you have agree to do.

I think that most laws (at least the ones I can think of) that fall outside of these two categories is an infringement on the rights of the individual.

So, bringing this all back around to abortion, you'll have to decide for yourself whether or not banning abortion would encroach on another person (the parents), or allowing abortion is encroaching on another person (the fetus/child.)

Well that's what the whole marijuana debate is about, isn't it? :P

 

But I guess that's actually why this is so controversial. But I'd like to bring up this question: does a fetus count as a person?

 

It's interesting to see how our generation is going to shape politics. I know a lot of people that are pro-choice - a lot more than pro-life supporters. Same with marijuana and gay rights.

[jubinator]

Agreed. She says that it could be a future president or future drug addict. Sorry to say this, but the baby would be more very much more likely to be a drug addict than a president.

 

Several people have used that arguement, and there's so many flaws in it that I burst out laughing, dispite how rude that is.

 

I agree, the kid is much more likely to end up on drugs or in jail than end up in politics. I typically argue that the kid could also grow up to kill the kid who will grow up to cure cancer - now look what you've done! Should've stopped 'em when you had the chance.

But women don't get abortions because they are afraid of whom the baby will become, and they don't keep their babies because they decide he/she will become president. I don't think this point (about whether the baby will be president or a drug addict) is a valid argument for either side.

[Macabre]

Well that's what the whole marijuana debate is about, isn't it? :P

 

But I guess that's actually why this is so controversial. But I'd like to bring up this question: does a fetus count as a person?

 

It's interesting to see how our generation is going to shape politics. I know a lot of people that are pro-choice - a lot more than pro-life supporters. Same with marijuana and gay rights.

 

Yeah, and I'm pro-pot too...Hmm. Wow. This discussion could easily branch out into a lot of others.

 

In my opinion it is, but then again, this is one person's opinion against another's.

 

Yeah, that's definitely true. And as much as I have a tendency to be cynical and apathetic...I'm kind of excited. Though as the young people definitely are getting more pro drug legalization and gay rights, according to more than a couple sources, they're also becoming more pro-life.

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6899/is_1_32/ai_n28248830/

http://www.slate.com/id/2253942/

 

(Also, in response to the above articles, pro life =/= wanting to immediately overturn Roe vs. Wade.)

[Unstream]

Huh, that's actually really surprising. At least in my school, the kids who are pro-life often don't have any solid arguments. And I figured that those who were pro-life often tended to just take up the views of their parents. I definitely didn't expect a large number of them to have come to that conclusion on their own.

 

I dunno, it mentioned in the first article how we "know that between 1/2 and 1/3 of our classmates, friends, teammates, and even siblings never saw the light of day. They weren't with us in the sandboxes and playgrounds, at slumber parties and at high school proms, nor in our college dorms or graduation exercises. And they should have been."

 

I'm not quite sure that's valid either, because y'know what they say, you can't miss what you never had.

Plus, I can't imagine what it'd be like to have twice as many students in my classes or my school. That'd be horrible - the world would be so much more crowded.

[CAV of Gang Green]

You're wrong Cav....try 9 billion XD

 

Last I checked there were 6 billion. When did the other 3 billion come in? :P

 

It's interesting to see how our generation is going to shape politics. I know a lot of people that are pro-choice - a lot more than pro-life supporters. Same with marijuana and gay rights.

 

It is interesting. But let me give you a quick fix on things:

 

I'm pro-choice for abortion.

I'm pro gay marriage.

I have no opinion on marijuana.........yet.

 

I don't think this point (about whether the baby will be president or a drug addict) is a valid argument for either side.

 

It isn't. The entire idea contradicts itself and leads nowhere. But when someone brings up future presidents and that crap and use it as an excuse to be against abortion when the odds are far against the baby becoming president, you gotta give them the other side of the coin.

 

Yeah, and I'm pro-pot too...Hmm. Wow. This discussion could easily branch out into a lot of others.

 

Ok, let's see here:

 

This abortion discussion came because people were discussing the abortion laws in China in the NK thread. So I made this.

 

Now I gotta make a pot topic too? I don't mind, but I swear the debate forum will be close to bursting by the time we're done. :P

[siemis]

I think if you to young, you have no family behind you... It would destroy two lives if you gave birth to the baby. Yours and the live of the child I mean can you really look for a child when you're not even near to be an adult?

 

BUT

 

I dont know how it feels to have a human growing inside you... I don't know if I could do an abortion when I'm really feeling there is something growing inside me oo

So I think you really now when you at the point to decide...

 

I don't think live starts at the beginning of the pregnancy. But then I went to Gunther von Hagens body world there you can see fetus in a row and its just scary how early that "thing" look like a baby oO

anyway:

 

I'm happy with the law here you can have a legal abortion till the 12 week after you last period.

After that its just allowed if there is a risk to the woman (ex: if she would die or she has the baby because she was raped)

And you don't have to pay for it. (thats what the health insurance is for... but they don't pay the birth control pill oO)

And no, I don't really care about China's decision to abort only girls. Because there's nothing I can do about that. In the end, it's so they can make money off of boys being able to do farm work, and work in factories. I can't do anything about it, because at the end of the day, it's their choice. Granted it's a wrong choice, but what can I do about it? What can you do about it? Nothing really.

 

Discuss.

 

 

What should they do? Have a girl and then when she went away to marry just DIE because you are to old to look out for yourself?

They didn't had really an option!

But it has changed.

When you give birth to a girl you get a retirement pension and they pay the school money - thats what they say but I'm never sure with China I don't believe anything they saying.

They just scare me!!

[CAV of Gang Green]

They didn't had really an option!

 

They didn't have an option. And we don't have the power to give them options. Like I said, there's nothing we can do about it.

[EchoEternal]

Wow, I'm jumping into this late. A lot of things I agree with have already been said, and a lot of things I disagree with.

 

I think the description of this thread is deceiving. I'm pro-choice, but I don't think I would be willing to have an abortion if I accidentally got pregnant (which is the only way I'm going to get pregnant, thanks to the IUD). I know the emotional turmoil following an abortion can be devastating, and - even though I think it is immoral to bring another child into an already over populated world - I am not willing to do something I will regret for decades to come when a healthy, white baby in the US is in high demand. It can be somebody else's. I'm personally willing to give up a few months of my life (even though it would wreak havoc on my university career, since my scholarships only last 4 years) in order to go full term.

 

So, my choice for my own body is "no," but I don't feel I have any business making that decision about anybody else's body. I also don't believe anybody besides the female herself should be making this decision for her. It's nice if she talks to the people whose lives it will effect, but it is - and should be - her decision.

 

Any being with nerve endings can feel pain, so I am more against some types of abortion than others (medicinal being more preferred than suction methods which rend the fetus) method and . I'm not against the killing of animals for the satisfaction of consuming their flesh and wearing their hides, and I'm not against the killing of a fetus for the preservation of somebody's lifestyle. I'm against waiting periods being longer than two days, as worse methods (both for the mother's health and in terms of pain suffered by the fetus) must be employed the longer it is allowed to grow.

 

I've heard the argument that some acts are "wrong," "sinful" or "infringe upon the rights/liberties of others" in all circumstances and should never be considered okay or legalized. I've heard a lot of things put in these terms, including abortion. I believe that each person must decide for themselves what is moral and immoral, and so it is invalid to say that something is universally wrong, in my mind. "Sin" implies a religious transgression; as I believe in freedom of religion, I don't think applying the moral codes of any religion to other people without their consent is okay. As for infringement upon the inalienable human right to life, I don't consider a fetus to be a human, just as I don't consider a caterpillar to be a butterfly. A fetus does not have human rights because it is not human. It has the genetic material, so the potential for human life is there, but it has not yet fulfilled that potential.

 

I don't think the Biblical defense is a good one, though I can't speak to other religions. In general, I don't think people should make decisions about another person's body; but I digress. The Bible does not consider a fetus that is not brought to term, to be a person. Genesis 9:6 states that the penalty for killing a fellow human is death, while Exodus 21:22 says that if two men are fighting and cause a woman to miscarry, the penalty is whatever fine the husband demands, up to the amount the judges allow. If all fetus were considered a person by the Bible, then causing a miscarriage would be equivalent to causing death, and the punishment would be death, which it is not. I say "that is not brought to term" because an omnipotent God would know which would be brought to term and which would not, and so the conundrum of predestination sets in.

 

In the end, my view is centered on my belief in the morality of supporting body autonomy. No person, organization or law should be able to tell anyone what they can and cannot do with their own body.

[Unstream]

So here's this essay I found. It's called "We Do Abortions Here". I found it very compelling and it describes quite well where I am on abortion.

 

I've posted it in this spoiler below for your convenience:

 

We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story by Sallie Tisdale

 

We do abortions here; that is all we do. There are weary, grim moments when I think I cannot bear another basin of bloody remains, utter another kind phrase of reassurance. So I leave the procedure room in the back and reach for a new chart. Soon I am talking to an eighteen-year-old woman pregnant for the fourth time. I push up her sleeve to check her blood pressure and find row upon row of needle marks, neat and parallel and discolored. She has been so hungry for her drug for so long that she has taken to using the loose skin of her upper arms; her elbows are already a permanent ruin of bruises. She is surprised to find herself nearly four months pregnant. I suspect she is often surprised, in a mild way, by the blows she is dealt. I prepare myself for another basin, another brief and chafing loss.

 

“How can you stand it?” Even the client asks. They see the machine, the strange instruments, the blood, the final stroke that wipes away the promise of pregnancy. Sometimes I see that too: I watch a woman’s swollen abdomen sink to softness in a few stuttering moments and my own belly flip-flops with sorrow. But all it takes for me to catch my breath is another interview, one more story that sounds so much like the last one. There is a numbing sameness lurking in this job: the same questions, the same answers, even the same trembling tone in the voices. The worst is the sameness of human failure, of inadequacy in the face of each day’s dull demands.

 

In describing this work, I find it difficult to explain how much I enjoy it most of the time. We laugh a lot here, as friends and as professional peers. It’s nice to be with women all day. I like the sudden transient bonds I forge with some clients: moments when I am in my strength, remembering weakness, and a woman in weakness reaches out for my strength. What I offer is not power, but solidness, offered almost eagerly. Certain clients waken in me every tender urge I have—others make we wince and bite my tongue. Both challenge me to find a balance. It is a sweet brutality we practice here, a stark and loving dispassion.

 

I look at abortion as if I am standing on a cliff with a telescope, gazing at some great vista. I can sweep the horizon with both eyes, survey the scene in a all its distance and size. Or I can put my eye to the lens and focus on the small details, suddenly so close IN abortion the absolute must always be tampered by the contextual, because both are real, both valid, both hard. How can we do this? How can we refuse? Each abortion is a message of our failure to protect, to nourish our own. Each basin I empty is a promise—but a promise broken a long time ago.

 

I grew up on the great promise of birth control. Like many women my age, I took the pill as soon as I was sexually active. To risk pregnancy when it was so easy to avoid seemed stupid, and my contraceptive success, a it were was part of the promise of social enlightenment. But Birth control fails, far more frequently than laboratory trials predict. Many of our clients take the pill; its failure to protect them is a shocking realization. We have clients who have been sterilized, whose husbands have had vasectomies each one is a statistical misfit, fine print come to life. The anger and shame of these women I hold in one hand, and the basin in the other. The distance between the two, the length I pace and try to measure, is the size of an abortion.

 

The procedure is disarmingly simple. Women are surprised as though the mystery of contraception, a dark and hidden genesis, requires an elaborate finale. In the first trimester of pregnancy, it’s a mere few minutes of vacuuming, a neat tidy up. I give a woman a small yellow Valium, and when it has begun to relax her, I lead her into the back into bareness, the stirrups. The doctor reaches in here, opening the narrow tunnel to the uterus with a succession of slim, smooth bars of steel. He inserts a plastic tube and hooks it to a hose on the machine. The woman is framed against white paper that crackles as she moves, the light bright in her eyes. Then the machine rumbles low and loud in the small windowless room; the doctor moves the tube back and forth with an efficient rhythm, and the long tail of it filled with blood that spurts and stumbles along into a jar. He is usually finished in a few minutes. They are long minutes for the woman her uterus frequently reacts to its abrupt emptying with a powerful, unceasing cramp, which cuts off the blood vessels and enfolds the irritate, bleeding tissue.

 

I am learning to recognize the shadows that cross the faces of the woman I hold. While the doctor works between her spread legs, the paper drape hiding his intent expression, I stand beside the table. I hold the woman’s hands in mine, resting them just below her ribs. I watch her eyes, finger he necklace, stroke her hair. I ask about her job, her family; in a haze she answers me; we chatter, faces close, eyes meeting and sliding apart.

 

I watch the shadows that creep up unnoticed and suddenly darken her face as she screws up her features and pushes a tear out each side to slide down her cheeks. I have learned to anticipate the quiver of chin, the rapid intake of breath and the surprising sobs that rise soon after the machine starts to drum. I know this is when the cramp depends, and the tears are partly the tears that follow pain—the sharp, childish crying when one bumps one’s head on a cabinet door. But a well of woe seems to open beneath many women when they hear that thumping sound. The anticipation of the moment has finally come to fruit; the moment has arrived when the loss is no longer an imagined one. It has come true.

 

I am struck by the sameness and I am struck every day by the variety here—how this commonplace dilemma can so display the difference of women. A twenty-one-year-old woman, unemployed, uneducated, without family, in the fifth month of her fifth pregnancy. A forty-two-year-old mother of teenagers, shocked by her condition, refusing to tell her husband. A woman in twenty-three-year-old mother of two having her seventh abortion, and many women in their thirties having their first. Some are stoic, some hysterical, a few giggle uncontrollably, many cry.

 

I talk to a sixteen-year-old uneducated girl who was raped. She has gonorrhea. She describes blinding headaches, attacks of breathlessness, nausea. “Sometimes I feel like two different people,” she tells me with a calm smile, “and I talk to myself.”

 

I pull out my plastic models. She listens patiently for a time, and then holds her hands wide in front of her stomach.

 

“When’s the baby going to grow up into my stomach?” she asks.

 

I blink. “What do you mean?”

 

“Well,” she says, still smiling, “when women get so big, isn’t the baby in your stomach? Doesn’t it hatch out of an egg there?”

 

My first question in an interview is always the same. As I walk down the hall with the woman, as we get settled in chairs and I glance through her files, I am trying to gauge her, to get a sense of the words, and the tone, I should use. With some I joke, with others I chat, sometimes I fall into a brisk, business-like patter. But I ask every woman, “Are you sure you want to have an abortion?” Most nod with grim knowing smiles. “Oh, yes,” they sigh. Some seek forgiveness, offer excuses. Occasionally a woman will flinch and say, “Please don’t use that word.”

 

Later I describe the procedure to come, using care with my language. I don’t say “pain” any more than I would say “baby.” So many are afraid to ask how much it will hurt. “My sister told me—“ I heard. “A friend of mine said—“ and the dire expectations unravel. I prick the index finger of a woman for a drop of blood tot test, and as the tiny lancet approaches the skin she averts her eyes, holding her trembling hand out to me and jumping at my touch.

 

It is when I am holding a plastic uterus in one hand, a suction tube in the other, moving them together in imitation of the scrubbing to come, that women ask the most secret question. I am speaking in a matter-of-fact voice about “the tissue” and “the contents” when the woman suddenly catches my eye and asks, “How big is the baby now?” These words suggest a quiet need for a definition of the boundaries being drawn. It isn’t so odd, after all, that she feels relief when I describe the growing bud’s bulbous shape, its miniature nature. Again I gauge, and sometimes lie a little, weaseling around its infantile features until its clinging power slackens.

 

But when I look in the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see an elfin thorax, attenuated, its pencilline ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside.

 

A sleepy-eyed girl, just fourteen, watched me with a slight and goody smile all through her abortion “Does is have little feet and little fingers and all?” she’d asked earlier. When the suction was over she sat up woozily at the end of the table and murmured, “Cam O see it?” I shook my head firmly.

 

“It’s not allowed,” I told her sternly, because I knew she didn’t really want to see what was left. She accepted this statement of authority, and a shadow of confused relief crossed her plain, pale face.

 

Privately, even grudgingly, my colleagues might admit the power of abortion to provoke emotion. But they seem to prefer the broad view and disdain the telescope. Abortion is a matter of choice, privacy, control. Its uncertainty lies in specific cases: retarded women and girls too young to give consent for surgery, women who are ill or hostile or psychotic. Such common dilemmas are met with both compassion and impatience: they slow things down. We are too busy to chew over ethics. One person might discuss certain concerns, behind closed doors, or describe a [particularly disturbing dream. But generally there is to be no ambivalence.

 

Every day I take calls from women who are annoyed that we cannot see them, cannot do their abortion today, this morning, now. They argue the price, demand that we stay after hours to accommodate their job or class schedule. Abortion is so routine that one expects it to be like a manicure: quick, cheap, and painless.

 

Still, I’ve cultivated a certain disregard. It isn’t negligence, but I don’t always pay attention. I couldn’t be here if I tried to judge each case on its merits; after all, we do over a hundred abortions a week. At some point each individual in this line of work draws a boundary and adheres to it. For one physicians the boundary is a particular week of gestation; for another, it is a certain number of repeated abortions. But these boundaries can be fluid too: one physicians overruled his own limit to abort a mature but overly malformed fetus. For me, the limit is allowing my clients to carry their own burden, shoulder the responsibility themselves. I shoulder the burden of trying not to judge them.

 

This city has several “Crisis pregnancy centers” advertised in the Yellow Pages. They are small offices staffed by volunteers, and they offer free pregnancy testing, glossy photos of dead fetuses, and movies. I had a client recently whose mother is active in the anti0avortion movement. The young woman went to the local crisis center and was told that the doctor would make her touch her dismembered baby, that the pain would be the most horrible she could imagine, and that she might, after an abortion, never e able to have children. All lies. They called her at home and at work, over and over and over, but she had been wise enough to give a false name. She came to us a fugitive. WE who do abortions are marked, by some as impure. It’s dirty work.

 

When a deliveryman comes to the sliding glass window by the reception desk and tilts a box toward me, I hesitate. I read the packing slip, assess the shape and weight of the box in light of its supposed contents. We request familiar faces. The doors are carefully locked. I have learned to half glance around at bags and boxes, looking for a telltale sign. I register with security when I arrive, and I am careful not to bang a door. We are all a little on edge here.

 

Concern about size and shape seem to be natural, and it’s the relief that follows. We make the powerful assumption that the fetus is different from us, and even when we admit the similarities, it is too simplistic to be seduced by form alone. But the form is enormously potent—humanoid, powerless, palm-sized, and pure, it evokes an almost fierce tenderness when viewed simply as what it appears to be. But appearance, and even potential, aren’t enough. THE fetus, in becoming itself, can ruin others; its utter dependence has a sinister side. When I am struck in the moment by the contents in the basin, I am careful to remember the context, to note the tearful teenager and the woman sighing with something more than relief. One kind of question though, I find, considerable trickier.

 

“Can you tell what it is>: I am asked, and this means gender. This question is asked by couples, not women alone. Always couples would abort a girl and keep a boy. I have been asked about twins, and even if I could tell what race the father was.

An eighteen-year-old woman with three daughters brought her husband to the interview. He glared firs at me, then at his wife, as he sank lower and lower in the chair, picking his teeth with a toothpick. He interrupted a conversation with his wife to ask if I could tell whether the baby would be a boy or a girl. I told him I could not.

 

“Good” he replied in a slow and strangely malevolent voice, “’cause if it was a boy I’d wring her neck.”

In a literal sense, abortion exists because we are able to ask such questions, able to assign a value to the fetus which can shift with changing circumstances. IF the human bond to child were a s primitive and unflinchingly narrow as that of other animals, there would not be abortion. There would be no abortion because there would be nothing more important that caring for the young and perpetuating the species, no reason for sex but to make babies. I sense this sometimes, this wordless organic duty, when I do ultrasounds.

 

We do ultrasound, a sound-wave test that paints a faint, gray picture of the fetus, whenever we’re uncertain of gestation. Age is measured by the width of the skill and confirmed by the length of the femur or thighbone; we speak of pregnancy as being a certain “femur length” in weeks. The usual concern is whether a pregnancy is within the legal limit for an abortion. Women this far along have bellies which sell out round and tight like trim muscles. When they lie flat, the mound rises softly about the hips, pressing the umbilicus upward.

 

It takes practice to read an ultrasounds picture, which is grainy and etched as though in strokes of charcoal. But suddenly a rapid rhythmic motion appears—the beating heart. Nearby is a soft oval, scratched with lines—the skull. The leg is harder to find, and then suddenly the fetus moves, bobbing in the surf. The skull turn away, an arm slides across the screen, the torso ro0lls. I know the weight of a baby’s head on my shoulder, the whisper of lips on ears, the delicate curve of a fragile spine in my hand. I know how heavy and correct a newborn cradled feels. The creature I watch in secret requires nothing from me but to be left alone, and that is precisely what won’t be done.

 

These inadvertently made beings are caught in a twisting web of motive and desire They are at least inconvenient, sometimes quite literally dangerous in the womb, but most often they fall somewhere in between—consequences never quite believed in come to roost. Their virtue arises and falls outside their own nature: they become only what we make them. A fetus created by accident is the most absolute kind of surprise. Whether the blame lies in a failed IUD, a slipped condom, or a false impression of safety, that fetus is a thing whose creation has been actively worked against. Its existence is an error. I think this is why so few women, even late in a pregnancy, will consider giving a baby up for adoption. To do so means making the fetus real—imagining it as something whole and outside oneself. The decision is a rejection; the pregnancy has become something to be rid of, a condition to be ended. It is a burden, a weight, a thing separate.

 

Women have abortions because they are too old, and too young, too poor, and too rich, too stupid, and too smart. I see women who berate themselves with violent emotions for their first and only abortion, and others who return three times, five times, hauling two or three children, who cannot remember to take a pill or where they put the diaphragm. WE talk glibly about choice. But the choice for what? I see all the broken promises in lives lived like a series of impromptu obstacles. There are the sweet, light promises of love and intimacy, the glittering promise of education and progress, the warm promise of safe families, long years of innocence and community. And there is the promise of freedom: freedom from failure, from faithlessness. Freedom from biology. The early feminist defense of abortion asked many questions, but the one I remember is this: Is biology destiny? And the answer is yes, sometimes it is. Women who have the fewest choices of all exercise their right to abortion the most.

 

Oh, the ignorance. I take a woman to the back room and ask her to undress; a few minutes later I return and fined her positioned discreetly behind a drape, still wearing underpants. “Do I have to take these off too?” she asks, a little shocked. Some swear they have not had sex, many do not know what a uterus is, how sperm and egg meet, how sex makes babes. Some late seekers do not believe themselves pregnant; they believe themselves impregnable. I was chastised when I began this job for referring to some clients as girls: it is a feminist heresy. They come so young, snapping gum, sockless and sneakered, and their shakily applied eyeliner smears when they cry. I call them girls with maternal benignity. I cannot imagine them as mothers.

 

The doctor seats himself between the woman’s thighs and reaches into the dilated opening of a five-month pregnant uterus. Quickly he grabs and crushed the fetus in several places, and the room is filled with a low clatter and snap of forceps, the click of the tanaculum, and a pulling, sucking sound. The paper crinkles as the drugged and sleepy woman shifts, the nurse’s low, honey-brown voice explains each step in delicate words.

 

I have fetus dreams, we all do here: dreams of abortions one after the other; of buckets of blood splashed on the walls; trees full of crawling fetuses. I dreamed that two men grabbed me and began to drag me away. “Let’s do an abortion,” they said with a sickening leer, and I began to scream, plunged into a vision of sucking, scraping pain, of being spread and torn by impartial instruments that do only what they are bidden. I woke from this dream barely able to breathe and thought of kitchen tables and coat hangers, knitting needles striped with blood, and women all alone clutching a pillow in their teeth to keep the screams from piercing the apartment-house walls. Abortion is the narrowest edge between kindness and cruelty. Done as well as it can be, it is still violence—merciful violence, like putting a suffering animal to death.

 

Maggie, one of the nurses, received a call at midnight not long ago. It was a woman in her twentieth week of pregnancy; the necessarily gradual process of cervical dilation begun the day before had stimulated labor, as it sometimes does. Maggie and one of the doctors met the woman at the office in the night. Maggie helped her onto the table, ad as she lay down the fetus was delivered into Maggie’s hands. When Maggie told me about it the next day, she cupped her hands into a small bowl—“it was just like a little kitten,” she said softly, wonderingly. “Everything was still attached.”

 

At the end of the day I clean out the suction jars, poring bloods into the sink, splashing the sides with flecks of tissue. From the sink rises a rich and humid smell, hot, earthy, and moldering; it is the smell of something recently alive beginning to decay. I take care of the plastic tub on the floor, filled with pieces too big to be trusted to the trash. The law defines the contents of the bucket I hold protectively against my chest as “tissue.” Some would say my complicity in filling that bucket gives me no right to call it anything else. I slip the tissue gently into a bag and place it in the freezer, to be burned at another time. Abortion requires of me an entirely new set of assumptions. It requires a willingness to live with conflict, fearlessness, and grief. As I close the freezer door, I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is.

 

 

 

I really encourage you all to read it. She isn't really pro-life or pro-choice, so it's not biased.

[tytio]

The difficulty in allowing abortions is drawing the line. Where should they be allowed and not allowed? Im sure everyone is aware of the Roe v Wade case, and how now she is an active pro-life supporter. But who is to say that you have had enough abortions? The lady that had 11, was it that last one that was too much? The 5th? The 2nd? The first? And people who complain about overpopulation are ridiculous. The only places that is a problem are in places that could not afford abortions anyway. Places like Africa, where kids keep coming, but resources are low. The world has plent more resources as a whole. Farmers are subsidized to NOT grow food. Thus, with more people, supply and demand would allow all farmers to continuously grow food without a deflation in the worth of food etc.

 

I do support abortions in certain cases (not dependant on age or fiscal responsiblity) in cases where: The life of the mother is at risk, The child has major complications and will not survive past a few years in life, The pregnancy was a result of any form of rape. In these instances, it is easy to draw a clear line of whether or not the abortion is appropriate and should be done.

 

The arguement of allowing a 16 year old an abortion because she is not ready to care for a child is ridiculous. Of course she isnt ready to support a child. But the man and woman both knew the risks going into the act, and though they were obviously not thinking about them at the time, nor maybe thought it was a possibilty, it does not retract the fact that they knew the possible consequences. By allowing them to get an abortion is just bailing themselves out of a situation. They will never learn if no punishment is invoked. Their brains are developed sufficiently to reason this out. Sex is like the opposite of the lottery when young. Everyone buys a ticket (the reward) but some are dealt the consequence. If abortion is allowed, it is essentially the same thing as allowing a 16 year old to rob a bank, but not let them go to jail, or suffer any penalty, because "they are too young.' This 16 year old will then go on, growing and screwing up more (not everytime, but usually, it is a trend). She may go on to get 10 more abortions. She will live a terrible life, becausee anytime something bad happens, she expects she does not have to pay a consequence. Why is it ok to put a 5 year old on time out to learn a lesson for drawing on the wall, but not a 16 year old. This punishment must last its full 9 months. Adoptive services will accept the child. Many people in the world are sterile, or cant have children for one reason or another. This 16 year old could be the answer. I would rarely think it is a good idea to let the teenager raise the child, unless they have lots of support, but we cant bail everybody out of there problems.

 

You want to be pro choice, you can be. Abstain. Use birth control. Multiple.

 

 

Bring the heat if you want.

[Unstream]

*cough* You should read the essay I posted above. *cough*

 

One huge issue is that there are too many people in this world, and as a whole are running out of resources, fast. No, farmers would not be able to sell more - the reason they get subsidized is to protect them from foreign competition. Y'know there's actually a food shortage? It's because people in developed countries consume too much, and people in undeveloped countries can't afford to consume.

 

And I would just like to point out that contraceptives don't always work.

[marchigiano]

I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions and morals, but no one should be able to force either of those on someone else. I am extremely pro-choice. No one but the woman in question has a right to choose what is or isn't done with her body, no matter what the circumstance.