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I am pro abortion though I don't like the argument "a woman should be able to do what she wants with her body". "Doing what you want with your body" is NOT a right afforded to anyone in society. The same argument would say that I should be able to do heroine because it's my body. LIFE is something that is defined and science will never be able to answer the question of whether a fetus is alive or not and when it should be consider alive. It's an arbitrary point no matter where you place it. I am pro-abortion anyway.
I believe in a right to birth control.
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Colin, purve piece from a while ago ...
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Babies, Abortion and the Cycle of Life
I've always said that if I fell pregnant right now, I wouldn't have the baby. Its an easy thing to say when not faced with the choice between a new life and your old one.
I recently fell pregnant and miscarried before I knew I was even pregnant. Some doctors claim that many women have several miscarriages before they carry a baby to full term. A miscarriage can come in the form of a very heavy period in the early weeks and this was the case with me. Probably around 3 weeks. The egg has been fertilized, starts to move to the right spot, gets comfortable and is evicted for whatever reason.
My emotions around this time were strange. I was very hormonal and cried a lot ... usually for reasons like 'I'm out of milk' or 'I forgot to buy stamps'. I'm not sure if the overdose of estrogen in my body was making me think extra intently on the subject of pregnancy and surrounding issues, but it sure gave me an opportunity to do some great research for a story.
I think now, my decision to have or not to have would be thought out much more seriously. I've always believed in a woman's right to choose, especially in cases of rape or extremely young girls. I'm certainly against abortion as an easy way out of a difficult situation.
My understanding of abortion was something like this. Girl goes to doctor, doctor waves a wand, baby disappears in some blood. So my horror when reading up on abortion techniques is truly making me change my mind on the whole abortion issue. I still believe in the right to choose, but surely in the age of modern science we can come up with some less barbaric ways to perform the procedure.
In a D&C abortion, usually performed between seven and twelve weeks of pregnancy, the doctor inserts a curette, a loop-shaped steel knife, into the womb through the dilated cervix. As the curette scrapes the wall of the uterus, the baby is cut into pieces. - from prochoice.com
Cut into pieces??!!
"Salting out" is the second most common method of inducing abortion and is usually used after sixteen weeks. The doctor inserts a long needle through the mother's abdomen and injects a saline solution into the sac of amnionic fluid surrounding the baby. The baby is poisoned by swallowing the salt and his skin is completely burned away. It takes about an hour to kill the baby. After the child dies, the mother goes into labor and expels the dead baby. Saline injections have been outlawed in some countries because of the risks to the mother, which can include lung and kidney damage if the salt finds its way into her bloodstream. In spite of the horrible burning effect, some babies have survived "salting out" and been born alive. - from prochoice.com
Now, no matter how strongly I feel about a woman's right to choose, I couldn't imagine being able to carry out this procedure without creating major emotional problems for the Mother. The guilt and shame of this must be so overpowering for a 14 year old rape victim who has already had to go through the initial act. How does one rebuild their life after firstly being raped, then dealing with being a murderer?
To make the choices even harder for girls in this situation, they have to go through the crowds of protestors out the front of clinics - most of these having never been involved in an incident where they have been forced to make the choice.
My sister came home yesterday and was telling me a story of abortion protestors in our home town. There was 2 young men holding up a big banner saying 'abortion is murder'. Under what circumstances does a man have the right to place this label on women trying to make this already difficult decision? Don't get me wrong, I believe men have a right to be involved in the decision process of their partner, friend or relative - but to label the general pro-choice female population as murderers is surely out of the range of rights of young men with nothing better to do with their time?
That brings me to another point in the abortion argument - the rights of the male involved to choose. If a couple falls pregnant or a woman falls pregnant after a one night stand, where does the choice of the man come in? I believe that even though the woman is carrying the child, the choice and responsibility needs to lie half with the male no matter what the relationship. When you enter into the physical agreement of sex, both parties are taking the chance of her becoming pregnant.
However, if both can't agree on the answer, where do you go from there? Its much easier for the male to suggest the easy way out or to back out of responsibility due to the fact that ... well ... he has the penis, not the womb.
I spoke to a few male friends and got their opinions on this and what they'd do in a difficult choice situation.
When asked about conception during a one night stand, one of the men joked "Well that is a funny thing, because if she decideds to keep the baby, then the man is liable for support and a man cannot tell a woman to either keep a child or abort. So as a man, i would say that false identities are always in order."
As silly as this sounds, a man's right to choose is often neglected. Because he isn't involved in the physical carrying of the child for the first 9 months, he is not accepted as being a part of the process. All men that I asked said they would definately want to know even if they weren't asked to be involved in the procedures.
"I feel that men get screwed in these situations. We are legally liable, regardless of our choices. So it doesn't really matter how we feel."
This is a common comment from men who have been involved in a child support battle, or a situation over the rights of both parties.
Personally, I think that both parties are equally responsible, expected to support the child equally financially and therefore should be equally involved in the choices. In this day of casual sex, we've forgotten how to communicate with a partner before taking on the responsibility of sex, and really, this is where the responsibilities should be made clear to both partners, before the act of intercourse.
"The problem is the same here as with all male/female relations. There isn't really any real communication or understanding. If people form a "partnership" even for just a few hours, they should be equally responsible for the benefits and liabilities."