What do you think of abortion?

Question

What do you think about abortion? is it murder? is it right? in what cases would you consider abortion either for yourself, or in someone else's situation consider abortion as the answer? Do you know someone, or have you yourself had an abortion ( you do not have to specify whether you had one yourself or not) i'm writing a paper, and instead of researching research, if that makes sense, i rather conduct my own studies. So please, be honest and informational, supply links if need be to support your argument, thank you. If you would rather tell me please, feel free to e-mail me. (this is due at the beg. of August, so no more replies thereafter is needed, unless you would like to share information to everyone else)

Answer 1

Women have always had and will always have abortions. Making them illegal makes them more dangerous and restricts access to abortion preventing poor women from having them. The rich will just do what they did before they were legal, fly to where they are legal and have it done. Poor women will do what they did before they were legal and either give birth to an unwanted child and abuse it, neglect it, and not love it or they will have all illegal dangerous backroom butcher shop abortion.

I think it is a choice each person must make for themselves. No one should be allowed to tell another what they must do or not do with their own bodies.

I know many many women who have had abortions. Even those who regret it say they would do it again under the same circumstances. I also know many many women who have had their children and most of them also never regretted their choice. This crap the neocons are putting out about it being damaging to the mental health of a woman to have an abortion is just that, crap.

Answer 2

I believe in the right of a woman to choose abortion. I hate them, but I think they are a necessary evil. To me, the best way to lower the number of abortions is continued education and programs to encourage adoption (programs that pay the woman's medical bills through her pregnancy and delivery, of course).

Very few women use abortion as "birth control," because it's not an easy procedure--from what I've heard, think root canal x3. Would you choose that over a condom or the pill? Most believe they honestly have few other choices, and are desperate. Since pregnancy is in fact a fairly dangerous thing for a woman's body (even if it goes well, her body will have permanent changes because of it, and sometimes it doesn't go well), no woman should be forced to stay pregnant or give birth against her wishes.

To answer your other question, about personal experience--I've never been pregnant, and thus have never had an abortion. I am unlikely to choose to have an abortion, but if I were a victim of rape or incest, you can darn well bet I'd be going after a morning after pill as soon as I was conscious. I had a friend who worked for Planned Parenthood, and more often than once she saw some pro-life big-wig sneak their own daughter into the clinic, taking advantage of something they claimed to want banned. Then again, the PP friend didn't think it was possible for a man and woman to abstain from sex for *any* period of time, so where she worked may have colored her view. I know of one woman, who'd been in a mental hospital more than once, who had several abortions before getting her tubes tied; she's not the average example, though. I know of another who had one abortion in her youth, and doesn't believe she could have gone on to become a nurse practitioner otherwise. I know of another who had an abortion during a crazy time when she was drinking too much and living crazy, and now that she's cleaned herself up, she regrets it. So it seems to depend on the individual case.

Answer 3

Abortion is a violent abuse of human rights. Unless a mother's life is endangered--a truly rare circumstance--I see no reason for abortion. Even the 1.5% of abortions for rape and incest cannot be justified. We shouldn't be carrying out capital punishment on the children simply because their father's a rapist.

As for the idea that abortion is fine simply because it's been around for a long time consider the following. Men have been raping women (and other men) for millenia. People have been enslaving each other for thousands of years. Husbands have beaten their wives for millenia. Women's genitals have been mutilated for centuries. Would anyone like to argue that these actions are fine simply because they're common occurrences?

Over 60 years ago my maternal grandmother was pregnant with my mother. My grandmother was 40 at the time. Her doctor gave her some pills to kill my mother. Fortunately, my grandmother was a wonderful woman, and flushed the pills down the toilet. The idea that abortions were only available in the "back alley" is propaganda.

If you talk to older women you'll find that many knew that abortion was available before it was legal. You might have had to ask around, but there were plenty of ob/gyn's doing abortions before they were legal. The coat hanger is another piece of propaganda.

A friend of a friend of mine had an abortion after a date rape. She was recovering from the rape, but she went into a tailspin after the abortion. She's not been right ever since. I know of 4 women who became pro-life activists after their abortions. So I guess it wasn't such a wonderful experience.

There are plenty of options available to pregnant women. They can force the fathers to provide for their children. They can apply for help from the government. They can request help from charities, including crisis pregnancy centers. There are thousands of free crisis pregnancy centers that provide pregnancy tests, diapers, clothes, health care referrals, counseling, adoption information, even money and shelter, etc. They can put their children up for adoption. There are 2 million couples looking to adopt, and many are able and willing to help the birth mothers financially. There's just no excuse for the 1.3 million abortions that take place every year in America.

Answer 4

I believe every human being has the right to life. I also believe that every human being should be afforded the right to consent to his own death. Human beings are created at conception. Conception to death is the life cycle of one human being, not a series of different beings replacing one another. Although human beings are developmentally impaired for much of their early lives, that in no way diminishes that they're living human beings. If we can discard a life because the human being can't breathe on his own or speak or function like developmentally more advanced human beings, then what's to stop us from also discarding the elderly, the retarded, the terminally ill, and coma patients and even infants and toddlers? Either all human life has value or we decide that some human beings just don't count.

I've known people who have had abortions, yes. I've never had an abortion and I never would under any circumstances. If I found myself pregnant and unprepared, I would give that child up for adoption. I don't care how dire my circumstances are - I don't have the right to kill another human being because of an unfortunate or unhappy situation.

Answer 5

i agree with abortion..i think any female who gets pregnant should have the choice to abort the baby..i personally think that an abortion should be done as soon in the pregnancy as possible because to me partial birth abortion just seems real nasty but no woman should be forced to carry out a pregnancy she doesnt want..as far as it being murder..i cant really say maybe if abortion is being done late in the pregnancy it could be considered murder but once again i think the woman should have the right to abort prior to giving live birth..