Re Abortions
 

ON another thread here a potential father is in a quandary re decisions what to do as his girll g=friend is pregnant and wishes to keep the baby.


I wonder what you views might be on abortions and whether the father of the baby should have a say in what happens. should he force the mother to abort the baby-- or even arrange an adoption-- should the woman be forced to Keep the baby if she doesn't want to keep it.

One hears of abortions where the foetus is 24 weeks before being aborted.

I am unsure of the law in the UK about limiting the length of pregnancy before aborting the baby.

when you see photographs of unborn babies it can seem horrific to just get rid of it.


They say some women never recover if they have aborted their baby. No doubt there have been thousands that nobody knew about.

should men be held responsible if the child is kept? should he support the mother and child?

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I am pro abortion. I believe no woman should be forced to have a baby she doesn't want. Of course the father gets a say in what to do, but the mother's decision is what counts most of all as it's her body and she'll the one going through pregnancy.

Do any of you know the death rate of abortions gone wrong? This isn't a walk in the park, it's even riskier than an operation. It involves a lot of blood vessels that can burst.
The rate of girls not being able to have any children for the rest of the life because of an abortion is very high. So for a decision you made in your youth you may be unhappy for the rest of your life.
On the other hand, having a child and not having the means to support even the feeding, I can't imagine how it feels for the mother.

It's a very difficult decision, someone who choses one solution or the other shouldn't be criticized.

PS: Look up on the net for the data if you don't believe. I'm not a caveman from Cave country, I'm just pointing out the facts.

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Sorry to disagree with you wifey, but abortions in the UK are still dangerous and will have some kind of death rate even if it is tiny. Even the first couple of weeks pill has many side effects and potential complications, any surgical procedure carries all the normal risks, then as it goes on the anaesthetic risks too. It is what we call a safe procedure though, compared to how it used to be, and many other operations.

It is a big decision for her to make to abort, just as it is to have the child, neither is easy or physically or mentally pain free.

I think it is a far less risk than choosing to bring up a child though, and agree often not the best choice to carry to term for a 19yr old at Uni but if she chose to keep we cannot judge her for that.

However we can perhaps judge this girl on how she expects the father to react, and the demands she is putting on him.

He does have a say in if he wants to be a father. If he chose not to be then in my mind for equal rights, he should be able to "abort" it from his point of view. Meaning if he wants to cut all contact (other than law forcing financial ones) and not be put on the birth certificate, then he shouldn't be judged for doing so.

She is the one who chose to keep the child (if she is against abortion on other reasons, she is still choosing to keep it if she doesn't give it up for adoption)
If she alone wants the child then she should be the one who has to deal with everything that bringing up a child involves, including finding a suitable male role model (a grandad and uncle, or a single steady bf) for the child.


OP I don't think you should feel pressured or morally bashed into being the worlds best Dad, or even a Dad at all if you don't want to be a Dad.
She had the choice if she didn't want to be a Mum, so it only stands to reason you can walk away from being a Dad.

I know lots of people will say this makes him a run-away father, and such, but think about it from the other angle. Society gives mothers the choice to not be Mums in many different ways, so shouldn't we think it acceptable for
fathers to chose not to be a Dad?

Of course they can't just keep changing mind and wander in and out of Child's life, it has to be a one off decision and agreement to not be involved at all ever.


Of course if you want contact and want to help with the child, then you also have every right to do that.

Just saying I think you have a choice, and I am sure the law doesn't force you to do more than pay money (I am not sure I agree with that, for the same reasons, but the law is the law)

NO, the guy should NEVER force his woman to get an abortion. An abortion is not only physically damaging to the woman's body (as you mentioned, it sometimes happens that the patient can never give birth again or even get pregnant) but mentally having to deal with the fact that you could've had a daughter or a son - ''what would he she look like?'', ''What would be his/her favorite dish?'', ''Would they be a pretty boy or a princessy girl?''.. It's all not put upon the guy's body - so he has NOTHING to say about it in my opinion.

Of course the guy should be held responsible if his gf chooses to keep the baby - if he doesn't wanna play daddy, then that's fine. But he should still pay till the kid's 18. IF the gf ''tricked'' him then he shouldn't have to pay tho; say if she said she was on the pill but wasn't, just because she wanted a baby.. But generally, he took part in the game. Consequences aren't just put upon ONE party of the fun here.

You can have an abortion without surgical intervention if you do it very early in your pregnancy, like within the first 6 weeks. There's not much risk to it as it basically consists of taking drugs that will kill the fetus, then your body reacts to it and you have an induced miscarriage. Most women find out they're pregnant before they reach 6 weeks into their pregnancy, so a non-surgical procedure is always an option without much physical risk to it.

The thing is, most women have gotten further into the pregnancy when they decide to get an abortion, so the most used method is vacuum aspiration, where all content is suctioned from the inside of the uterus. And really, it ain't all that risky. It's a very simple procedure. Surgeons deal with much worse and complicated things all the time. This is something a first year intern would be able to do. Personally, I'd be more concerned about psychological damage than anything else. A woman can walk right out of the hospital on her own feet after getting this kind of abortion on the very same day she's had it, that's how simple it is.

I guess it depends on wether you believe the unborn child is human and has as much right to life as any other human. That's the core arguement really, is the unborn child just a mass of cells that is no more "alive" than your liver, or is it in fact "John, Mary, Wanda, William"?

When is it alive? is it ever alive? can we decide that at 3 months? 7 months? 15 years? How bout late term abortions? should we allow those past 9 months? what about someone who survived an abortion, should the mother be allowed to abort them later when they are a teenager? What if the mother decides the baby's hair is the wrong color? is that ok for an abortion?

Some may laugh off the arguement, but it happened before. It's called ugenics and it was practiced by the Nazi's.

This post by RobinMask completely sums up my views on abortion.
I support it in the most dire of cases. It would be selfish of me to place some sort of judgment on those who have legitimate reasons to do so.

When it comes down to me as an individual, however, the very idea of termination is something I would never place as an option outside the threats a pregnancy may have to the mother's life.

I'd like to say I'm taking a political or spiritual stance on the situation, but realistically speaking, My characteristics -as an individual- wouldn't allow me to live my life wondering of what that child could have been. It would completely break my heart, I'm sure.

All in all, it's not like I have much say in the situation as a man, but you can believe I'd fight for it if I ever found myself in the situation.

*eugenics and it was a bit more complicated than liking hair colour but if that is how you want to simply it to yourself fine, but when telling others about things we need to be more objective and less slap-dash instantly attaching negative connotations without the full picture is never a valid approach.

A more accurate simplification is that Eugenics was the idea that we can genetically select the strongest genes to create a better human race for all humanity. It was corrupted into powerful individual's and group's ideas of what the better genes are, instead of as it was originally intended, based on a scientific approach of what would benefit us the most.
Genetic testing to warn parents if the pregnancy has a chance of certain diseases to give them the chance to abort, is not a dissimilar idea, just not taken as far.

Eugenics was never designed to give individual mothers the choice of hair colour, eye colour and other such aesthetic issues.


I don't think the debate of when something becomes an individual entity or "alive" as you put it goes beyond birth in any circles. So it is ridiculous to suggest that it is theoretically going to be legal to "abort" a 15year old.
Reel in the hyperbole here.

You are right that the debate of when a foetus becomes its own life is where most of the debate on abortion centres from.
For me I believe this moment to be birth, when it becomes separate from the mothers body. Until then it is part of her, like any other, to do with as she pleases. Arguments about it being alive/moving/growing/changing could be applied to tumours so don't interest me.

The only interesting debates on this are around the value we place on it's potential to become life, but if we go down this route we would have to start banning all contraception as that stops potential life, therefore if we allow potential life to be stopped in such ways, we cannot then use it in an argument to deny it being stopped in another method.

Others believe it is the time it could survive on it's own (but with science advancing soon this will be the same as the moment of conception, so again it becomes a near impossible and very impractical situation)

Abortion is the mothers choice as it is part of her body is the nice simple way I can put my views.

for goodness sake Have you looked at those videos of scans of babies in the womb>


It is a living creature-- Not just some damned unwanted piece of meat to be discarded so easily.

Until it has developed brain function it is no more a living creature than the millions of living creatures I have in my balls.

If abortion is murder then everytime a man splooges he is committing murder lol.

Don't be so influenced by things you see on the T.V that make you feel sad and wobbly inside.
All cells are living, a tumour growing might look quite pretty and amazing under the ultrasound or microscope.
If your next line is that this is more than that it will become a person, then as Ronin4hire said everytime sperm gets wasted or a girl has a period the potential for life is aborted and you don't see anyone (Other than maybe some extreme religious sects) getting up in arms about this.

No one said it was an easy choice to discard it, just that is is a choice the mother who has to carry and grow the foetus has, and no one should want to take this choice from her or judge her for making it.

agree. and any women that has had more than one period is a serial killer.

Pretty much what I just said, glad to see some people here are on the same page :D

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This is really interesting I did not know that about Catholicism ,I always thought they counted the point of conception as the start of life, and anything preventing this is murder hence why until very recently Catholic's opposed condoms so heavily.

Dogsbody, It is always difficult to debate on peoples ethics I feel, but we do need to keep clear of overly emotive statements/shock tactics such as scans, and also keep our own personal experiences separate from what our morals/logic lead us to.

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I had a non-surgical abortion
Its an option up until nine weeks
I was six weeks

I get a lot of hell
but so many things would have gone wrong for me, physically, emotionally, mentally, and such if I kept it.

So many issues rose out of it.
I never wanted to be in that position...but when planned parenthood ignores your concerns on your birth control and calls it "side effects..." and it turns out its signs of not working...yeah....



oddly enough, the baby was due around now...if I kept it.

But its funny
you wanted people's opinions, then got offended when they didn't agree.
Sad.

Some Christians say life begins at the time when blood appears. The modern interpretation is: when the heart begins to beat (around the 18th day). - It's because the Bible consists (quite a lot)sentences about the life and the blood connection.
Christianity has too many branch, if you ask me...

For goodness sake, right back at you boy.

Have you looked at photos and tapes of kids from broken homes? Kids who may have suffered many kinds of abuse and psychological neglect because their mother was 'forced' to have them because a baby is not just "some damned unwanted piece of meat to be discarded so easily."? Have you read about what birth depression causes mothers to do to their children? Some of these mothers probably wanted the children at some point.. but if you feel mentally unable to provide what a newborn child needs, then there's no need to bring something to the world that'll only live in misery, feeling unwanted, abandoned and out of place.

I think the abortion pill (we call it the 'regret pill', which seems kinda weird.. oh well) is fine. It's only functional up to a certain time frame and at least here in Denmark you can't get an abortion when the fetus is older than 9-15 weeks, I think.. It's a big gap, but I really don't remember.

A baby that hasn't been born into this world, obviously can't look through a peep-hole in the belly button to see what it's missing, and I highly doubt that it's gonna go to 'Heaven' (or whatever people wish to believe in) and object to God.

Edit: Either way, it's very common that 'first time'-mommies lose their first child before 15 weeks. Natural abortion, really. Is that wrong too?

I'm not defending Catholicism or Christianism, according to the canonical source when a old person (you can put any person here) dies by a natural death it's not wrong, but a person kill another person IS wrong. What is natural is natural. The Catholicism point of view is the same for abortion because someone (not natural abortion) kill the fetus that the canonical source consider a person so it's murder in the reason that a human being don't have right to kill another human being. To exemplify better their view is: abortion is the same as getting a gun and kill your neighbor or anyone else.

I'm a Christian but I'm not against purely for that reason. I think that every life is sacred and special. There's been numerous cases where it's caused physical and mental trauma. Then again I suppose there has also been cases where it's been fine.
I just think that every life should be given a chance no matter what. Who knows what they would accomplish in life. I think it is completely wrong for someone to have an abortion just because they got pregnant because there wasn't protection, or it was an accident, or whatever the reason.
To each their own, people have to live with it if they decide to do it. It's just my opinion though. Everyone has their own.

I understand the mother's body arguement, however, to me. The RH factor prooves it isn't the mother's body at all, but a seperate life. If this RH factor comes into play and the mother's blood and baby's blood accidently mix, they will fight each other.

Eugenics may sound like a nice idea, but it will allways be corrupted, because man is corrupted. I used hyperbole because with the Nazi's "aborting" unwanted people was actually the law. That was what the "Final solution" was all about.

Science doesn't make moral commitments to anything , it doesn't know right or wrong in what it does, it simply is. That's why you can't let science dictate law. Science will find it jusifiable to kill a million if the knowledge gleened can better everyone else. That's the path Eugenics envaribly takes.

I am proabortion.

I belive that its the womans choice. If she doesn't want it, get rid of it.

I'm against adoption, there are too many kids waiting to be adopted.

Actually in some areas of the world , a man can go to jail/charged if he forces a woman to get an abortion.

Woman body = woman choice.
Man made choice when he didn't wear the condom.

ahhhh....i'll let this guy explain. :cool:
link to youtube - sanctity of life

And what's your stance if the man did wear a condom?

While I don`t want to get involved in any debate about abortion itself... I think there are some flaws in the arguments you present.
There are just as many children who were "wanted" that end up abused as those who weren`t wanted. A person who makes a selfish decision to have a baby because they want a cute little pet person is a lot more likely to end up neglecting or abusing the child once they realize that it`s not just an accessory.

This is a very bad example. Postpartum depression is said to be far more common in mothers who DO want their children. When a baby is wanted and there is a lot of looking forward to it`s arrival... Only to have it not be the level of joy that was expected, and then feelings of something being wrong because the joy isn`t being felt... and then the spiral of hormonal changes and the stress of not feeling what everyone tells you should be felt.

The problem is that if the mothers feel they wanted the child... It isn`t as if you can "abort" the baby once it`s born. The mothers who feel they want the baby and then are unable to care for it don`t realize this until a baby is THERE.

Personally, when there is no doubt that the baby could not be cared for and no doubt that the baby is unwanted at this time, I see no problems with having an early abortion. Obviously it`s best to not get pregnant to begin with, but the world is not a perfect place.
I do have an issue with "selfish" abortions - the kind where the mother didn`t really bother with birth control because she can always get an abortion.
If you don`t want / cannot care for a baby, do your very best not to get pregnant... And if you do, abortion should be the last resort and should be done ASAP. I think that in most cases, this is the way it is. Frivolous abortions are not very common.

I just kind of wish there was some way to punish the type who doesn`t really bother with birth control, thinking it will never happen to them, without causing an unwanted child to be brought into the world.

Hi Nyrorin you have said it all really-- You have a gift.

somewhere on this thread somebody posted a link to a catholic site-- or a comparison site-- discussing when a child becomes ALIVe or has a soul.

This makes me consider SOULS.

I was brought up to believe I had a soul and that when I died my SOUL would go to heaven Or the other place.


Now I no longer know what is true or not true.

I believe we all have a spiritual part of ourselves-- SPIRIT>

Why do so many of us want there to be a GOD?

rather like wanting someone to look after us and someone we can blame or turn to in times of trouble. Spiritualists believe that even aborted babies go on to have a life in the spirit world.


The words of Omar Khayam re:

Strange is it not

that of all those who have passed the door of darkness through

Not one returns to tell us of the road

which to discover

We must travel too.

Jesus said "suffer the little children to come unto me"

would Jesus have been happy with us aborting a perfectly healthy foetus or baby?

I just want to step in quickly and stop the religion discussion in its tracks.

We don`t allow discussions of religion on this board as they always end up ugly, and someone ends up insulting someone else or their beliefs.
While I understand your reasons for bringing up religion, we need to keep it out of the discussion.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm!

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I was just about to say can we not get into souls and other such religious points, it will end in personal attacks for sure.
Good work Mods :)

better not have world war three!!!

Heyyy I know where you got that from. You couldn't have chosen a better person to quote.

You guys could all use a laugh at this point:

suki..if there was a god...george carlin would be my one and only god :cool:
when i first watched him - he immediately summed up all of my thoughts with great deal of laughter.

bill maher is now the best of what's left since Carlin is gone.

If human life before birth holds no real value, then human life after birth doesn't either. The marble will never be the diamond.

Absolute crap...