Sansa Stark

Rick Perry is such a shitlord

Paedantic Basterd

The new pope seems pretty cool, far as popes go, so perhaps an eventual change in thinking is on the horizon.

Circe

An American friend reckons it's going to get shot down in the Supreme Court, which I guess I can hope for. If the dubious statement about 80% of Texans opposing the move is true it could at least harm Rick Perry's political career. That's always a plus.

Burning Down

Pro-choice here.

I think that restricting access to public abortion clinics will not stop women from getting abortions, but those women will have to find more radical ways to do so. Actually, this already happens in Third World countries where women are just too poor to afford a safe abortion, or where religious oppression forbids women from aborting a pregnancy. They often get them in back alleys or at makeshift facilities

Edit: if there are votes from Pro Life people, I'd really be interested to hear (or rather, read) their opinions on the subject.

Newkie

Oh, I see you largely beat me to the point anyway Burning Down!

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Trollheart

This is a hot topic in Ireland at the moment. A young Indian woman recently died because she was, literally, told by the nurse "Oh you can't have an abortion in Ireland dear: this is a catholic country!" Jesus (and I use these words deliberately) Christ! Is this the effing dark ages or what?

Now we have our govt pushing through needed legislation which will allow LIMITED abortion under EXTREME circumstances in the future, but the pro-lifers can only ever see their own twisted agenda, dead babies and God crying over them. They make me sick. Our taoiseach (govt leader/PM) has received some really hateful mail about it, saying he's killing babies and so on. People need a kick in the head.

So yeah I'm obviously pro-life.
Not.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Newkie

As is the case with so many things in this world, criminalising the action-in this case abortion-will only work piecemeal. It will mean more children are born, but there is nothing to say what sort of life these children will lead among so many other situational variables. Again, as with drugs and prostitution the demand for abortion will exist so long as humanity does, it will only lead to "black market" abortions be they ingested poisons or dodgy surgeries, only these will fund a criminal element that could otherwise be largely avoided, not to mention the harm it will cause to the patient.

There are a few people who take the piss with abortions or who seem what I would regard as worryingly unaffected by abortion, but by and large it is a huge decision in a parents life and a very painful one at that-obviously much more so for the mother. I know three girls pretty well who have had abortions from the 16-22 age range and each one of them goes completely off the rails on the given date or even the month at which they aborted for years afterwards, let alone the period after deciding.

Rarely "quick fix for sluts" which seems to be painted by social conservatives, in my experience.

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Freebase Dali

I'm Pro Situational. If it's a health risk or otherwise unreasonable for a woman to carry a child to term, by all means. I'll even go so far to say that I support pretty much any reason, assuming the kid couldn't survive outside of the womb by the time of the procedure, which would be rather sadistic if carried out, although I would hope a responsible person wouldn't let it get that far unless they found out about a health risk too late. In which case, again, situational.

However, I don't agree with the approach regarding "I can do what I want with my body" that seems to be pervasive in women's rights movements. At some point, it's not just your body, just as it isn't your body if you kill your 2 year old child (I'm not sure how to sugar-coat ending someone's life). Whatever arbitrary line we draw between conception and "life" is not for me to say, but it's pretty obvious that it has to be drawn somewhere, which I'm sure most of us agree with, and I'm pretty sure we already have laws for it.

While I won't outright disagree with a woman's decision to terminate for any reason prior to that arbitrary line, I do feel as though there should be some expectation of responsibility involved, rather than advancing an agenda that seems to either absolve people of personal responsibility or, on the other hand, deny the decision outright.
This is why I support easy access to contraception and morning-after pills, which I definitely think should be sold over the counter, and even covered on insurance for free.

The right seems to think that we can legislate personal responsibility, and that's definitely a bad assumption. People will make mistakes, and some of us will be outright irresponsible. I think it's important to make it easier for people to then rectify the issue without having to resort to abortion first. And I think it's completely wrong to both place further restrictions on abortion while not accommodating the sort of preventative measures that would make abortion a less relied upon method to begin with, which is what the right seems to be doing.

No one WANTS to have an abortion. They don't go out getting pregnant so they can get an abortion. So if the right wants less abortions, then they should be advocating for more and better access to preventative measures, instead of flinching at policies that would do just that.

I'm all for using my tax dollars to support methods that would, in many cases, not end up with the need for abortion in the first place.

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Stephen

Fair enough.


My problem with the question of 'choice' is that having seen my own children at 8 weeks on ultrasounds and my niece born prematurely weighing just 550g I can't remove that emotional imprinting from the equation when I consider the question of whether it is someone's right to get an abortion 20 weeks into a pregnancy. I always felt it was a valid choice but my experiences as a father have reframed the question irrevocably. I came to a point where it just seemed like a ridiculously spineless position to take of "Yeah sure you have the right to end that life." Before people start with the sanctimonious tirades obviously you have the legal right to make your own decisions. I am merely stating the reasons for my own personal position on the 'choice'.


Those are choices I support 100%.

Freebase Dali

I've never had any kids. My perspective is one not attached to personal emotion, however, I still can't help but see the actual logic involved with whether an unborn child is considered a sentient life form or not. A potential person, or argued differently, an actual human in the making (unless we're defining humans as "those who have exited a vagina") is still being killed (Or... "gently prevented from existing", if that sounds better) in the procedure.
The obvious separation here is the line society draws between the acceptability of termination and the unacceptability of it, based on what we dictate via the arbitrary line we've come to accept.

While I don't disagree with the decision to terminate as a whole, I would definitely hope that this is less of a "women's rights" thing, and more of a human decency thing, whether it's more decent and necessary for the mother to abort, or allow the child to live. That's all I'm saying.

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