Debate Abortion

[CiCi]

I've got an interesting physiology that makes this debate a bit tougher. I can't have any form of female birth control outside of the expensive and intrusive tubal ligation (which doctors typically won't perform on a childless woman my age anyway). All female birth control otherwise involves hormones which can help regulate a lot of women. For me, however, the hormones make me go, for lack of a better word, insane. Crying, lots of screaming, mental breakdowns, reckless behavior, and everything in between; I've been on several different kinds of birth control and I couldn't handle any of them. Pills, shots, insertions... They all made me go crazy and lose my mind. It felt like I was bipolar or psychotic. And it was horrifying because for a while I thought I was just going insane and didn't relate it to my birth control.

I tried them for months to "get my body used to it" and all it really did was screw me over harder. After a year of birth control, I found that I just couldn't do it. And I'm too afraid of those psychotic breaks to even fathom trying birth control again any time soon. So my only option is condoms. Which are reliable about 70% of the time, depending on the condom. I'm lucky that my fiancée and I have found ways that work for us but I have to wonder how many other women suffer through this as well. Because I love sex and I'm sure other women do, too, but then we have risk pregnancies because of our problems with all this hormonal birth control.

That being said, I would get an abortion if I found out I was pregnant. I simply cannot, with all my anxiety and depression issues, carry a child that would mess with my hormones. So in that way, I am pro-choice. But I'm also not pro-abortion, either. If you're going to get an abortion, you should do it as early as possible. After 20 weeks, the fetus is, debatably in some circles, viable and you often have to start taking limbs off of forming embryos in order to perform an abortion. Whether or not this equates to sentience is yet to be fully tested.

I think the morning after pill should be cheaper (if not free). I've seen them at the store -- where I live, one single pill was 60 USD. That's ridiculous. (And no I don't count it as an abortion). Contraception should never be so damn expensive. There's too much poverty and bullshit in the world for someone to feel forced to carry a kid because they have no other option. Better sexual education is a must. Not just "this is a penis, this is a vagina, they make babies", either. We need to teach kids what having a child entails, not just how to go about doing it. It clearly prevents nothing the way we're teaching it now. Teen pregnancy is just as prevalent (if not more so) than ever.

I wish pro-lifers would be a little more actually pro-life, rather than just anti-abortion. Someone up above (can't remember who since there were so many comments I read through) mentioned how kids and the welfare state get screwed pretty hard by the same people who oppose abortion; and it's true, and a messed up situation. Kids shouldn't have to suffer at the hands of people who only do things because of religious obligation rather than their own true morality.

There's also a debate on whether or not fathers should have a say in abortions. This is very grey for me because women are the ones that have to go through the pregnancy and the birth, whereas dads get to sit by and wait. I think it's pretty messed up to force a woman who has no desire to be pregnant to go through with it anyway because he disagrees with the abortion, but it's also messed up to abort a baby against a father's wishes. It comes down to sex ed, and learning not to impregnate someone who has no desire to start a family with you. Basically, don't have sex with just anyone because you're horny and don't cum inside of your female partner without their full consent and understanding that they probably will get pregnant.

It's a pretty nasty situation all around and I wish people would learn to be more responsible, especially when it comes to picking partners. If you impregnate your girlfriend of 4 months and she gets an abortion and you're mad about that, you should've made better choices. Same with getting pregnant by your on-again off-again boyfriend and carrying it to term despite that he doesn't want to become a father; you can't force him to be one; clearly the people involved should've made better choices.

Anyway, that's my response that's far too long so no one will read it, thank you for coming to my TED-Rant.

 

[moon]

Gentle reminder that it's not just women who may experience unwanted pregnancies, trans men and other AFAB people also have a role in this discussion and are almost always excluded from it, either because of malice or just plain careless wording.

Like Hands, I think pro life is an extremely hypocritical phrase because of all the harm people who support that ideology are doing to actual living children. Such people are anti choice, not pro anything at all. So if you hadn't guessed from reading this far, I'm pro choice.

I'm sure nobody here means to purposefully exclude such people. For the vast majority of people in the world, it's common that persons who were assigned female at birth and still consider themselves women are the pregnant part, and easier to say for them than saying "person with a vagina" or "person who is able to get pregnant". I hope nobody will take offense to the language chosen in this thread.

/tangent

 

[Corrin]

It should be common knowledge that children are neglected and even abused in group homes or foster care, and that having to move between families all the time has strong social impacts on the child, only for them to be expected to be able to fully support themselves at 18. For this reason I think that contraceptives should be made more available and covered by the government because honestly I think not being born at all is better than being born into a life of abuse and misery. Believe me, I know.

 

[Hands]

too abortion happy.

I'll tell you this plainly. I have never met a single person who had an abortion who was 'happy' about it or took the decision lightly. Your comment that people who aren't prepared to raise an unwanted child shouldn't practice safe sex is akin to saying people who get hit by cars should have thought about that before crossing the road. It's a non point.

While I don't have any statistics it strikes me that any child in such a situation would prefer to be alive than to have been violently dismembered and sucked out of the womb.

Maybe there is a study based on children's feelings toward not having been born/current situation in an orphanage or something.

This is by far the most ridiculous thing you've ever contributed here.


https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/

https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/uk_abortion_statistics/

the vast, vast majority of abortions happen in the first trimester.

Let's ask this small pile of cells if it wants to be removed with two pills or not shall we? Your horror story that you're painting is not representative of most abortions and is literally an outrageous statement that contributes nothing to the topic other than to coddle your own emotions. This is a serious debate about a serious topic. Treat it like it or take a hike.


https://www.bpas.org/abortion-care/abortion-treatments/the-abortion-pill/


If most abortions happen before the 12th week, and the pill system is, without question, the preferred method within that timeframe then most people aren't violently cutting up a near fully developed screaming baby and vacuuming it out are they?

Okay, that is debatable, but does not invalidate the question of a child that has been born into a mukty situation would prefer to be alive than to be aborted. Especially if such a manner would involve dismemberment through vacuum hose. Or to be born half way and then have their skull punctured and compressed so that they can be removed the rest of the way.

At what point is it the exact same thing as a living, breathing baby?

 

[gimmepie]

I'll tell you this plainly. I have never met a single person who had an abortion who was 'happy' about it or took the decision lightly. Your comment that people who aren't prepared to raise an unwanted child shouldn't practice safe sex is akin to saying people who get hit by cars should have thought about that before crossing the road. It's a non point.

Firstly, there is a reason I said "for want of a better term". Obviously nobody is jumping around, celebrating an abortion. You know exactly what I meant. Don't misrepresent my views.

Secondly, it's impossible to go anywhere without crossing a street. It's perfectly possible to get through life without screwing someone if you can't handle the results. I'm an extremely liberal person overall, but it always irks me that part of the expected liberal mindset is to ignore personal responsibility.

I am fully aware that getting an abortion is not an easy choice to make for most, I'm not going to hold a grudge against desperate people who have made that decision, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it or support it.

Edit: Also, I want it noted that while I don't personally agree with Her's view on the matter, I think that's a pretty reasonable perspective to take.

 

[Nah]

I don't see what is to be gained from forcing people to have a baby that they don't want to/are not ready to handle, or what significant harm is being done to the rest of society that the option of abortion must be mostly eliminated, and for something like just having sex at that (especially for the people that did everything right beforehand but just got unlucky). There are things worse than death or not existing anyway.

 

[Corrin]

Firstly, there is a reason I said "for want of a better term". Obviously nobody is jumping around, celebrating an abortion. You know exactly what I meant. Don't misrepresent my views.

Secondly, it's impossible to go anywhere without crossing a street. It's perfectly possible to get through life without screwing someone if you can't handle the results. I'm an extremely liberal person overall, but it always irks me that part of the expected liberal mindset is to ignore personal responsibility.

I am fully aware that getting an abortion is not an easy choice to make for most, I'm not going to hold a grudge against desperate people who have made that decision, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it or support it.

Edit: Also, I want it noted that while I don't personally agree with Her's view on the matter, I think that's a pretty reasonable perspective to take.

I will say that sometimes it's not that easy, some people are manipulative as fuck and coerce their partners into sex or other things.
And rape is a thing too.

 

[gimmepie]

I will say that sometimes it's not that easy, some people are manipulative as fuck and coerce their partners into sex or other things.
And rape is a thing too.

Of course it's not always easy. Hence I mentioned very early on that their are circumstances where it becomes a more reasonable consideration.

 

[Ys]

I'm more Pro-choice and majorly agree with Her's views. Though I can see the other perspective I don't agree on taking someone's freedom away. It's a different thing if someone was just irresponsible and didn't think on the consequences at all, but that's where sex ed should come in. And also there are different ways of getting satisfied other than penetration.

 

[EnglishALT]

At what point is it the exact same thing as a living, breathing baby?

Considering I already said I think abortions should be legal through the first trimester, I guess we are in agreement?

 

[Hands]

Firstly, there is a reason I said "for want of a better term". Obviously nobody is jumping around, celebrating an abortion. You know exactly what I meant. Don't misrepresent my views.

Secondly, it's impossible to go anywhere without crossing a street. It's perfectly possible to get through life without screwing someone if you can't handle the results. I'm an extremely liberal person overall, but it always irks me that part of the expected liberal mindset is to ignore personal responsibility.

I am fully aware that getting an abortion is not an easy choice to make for most, I'm not going to hold a grudge against desperate people who have made that decision, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it or support it.

Edit: Also, I want it noted that while I don't personally agree with Her's view on the matter, I think that's a pretty reasonable perspective to take.

By saying people are too "trigger happy" you're implying that they just treat it like a casual thing and not a life changing decision that stays with you until the grave. People have to make the choice in a short period of time because every day you don't is a day closer to it being a baby. People who haven't had to face that choice have zero idea of what it's like.

Considering I already said I think abortions should be legal through the first trimester, I guess we are in agreement?

You also twice painted a horror story of cutting up a living baby in the womb and asking children if they wished that happened to them when you know full well that is not a remotely common occurrence and usually a result of a medical complication. It's honestly akin to me saying "we should ask a child who was repeatedly raped and beaten in care if they wish that instead of that they had not been born" It's so disingenuous and has no place in a serious debate.

 

[Her]

I used to be rather close to a lady who did flippantly play off her abortions as, well, merely little errands. I don't think they were like that to her, but that's what her public face was, for better or worse. It's not something I was going to bring up with her, considering the likelihood that such an attitude was just her coping method for a process I cannot fathom. However, I do not think it matters if she was truly flippant about the idea. That's what has always puzzled me about the idea of the hypothetical aloof patient at the clinic. Let's say the 'trigger happy' person is far more common than I believe. Why does it matter? Is it because they were not sufficiently repentant? Is there a standard of misery someone needs to meet in order for their choice to matter? Such an idea reveals far more about the person moralising over an insufficiently scarred individual than the individual themselves.

 

[EnglishALT]

You also twice painted a horror story of cutting up a living baby in the womb and asking children if they wished that happened to them when you know full well that is not a remotely common occurrence and usually a result of a medical complication. It's honestly akin to me saying "we should ask a child who was repeatedly raped and beaten in care if they wish that instead of that they had not been born" It's so disingenuous and has no place in a serious debate.

Do you deny that the pro life movement is made up of numerous stories from people who could have been aborted but survived or their parent choose against it?

https://www.lifenews.com/2016/12/16...i-did-not-deserve-death-for-my-fathers-crime/

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44357373

https://www.sba-list.org/born-alive-abortion-survivors-documented-cases

These stories make up one side of the pro life argument, and thus questioning if the child should get a say, or in those that survived, are glad that they survived, is certainly valid.

What doesn't seem right is name calling and gate keeping a debate.

 

[Hands]

Do you deny that the pro life movement is made up of numerous stories from people who could have been aborted but survived or their parent choose against it?

https://www.lifenews.com/2016/12/16...i-did-not-deserve-death-for-my-fathers-crime/

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44357373

https://www.sba-list.org/born-alive-abortion-survivors-documented-cases

These stories make up one side of the pro life argument, and thus questioning if the child should get a say, or in those that survived, are glad that they survived, is certainly valid.

What doesn't seem right is name calling and gate keeping a debate.

You miss the point. Asking an already living person if they wish they had been cut up in the womb has no relevance to the debate. You used deliberately provocative language to try and frame abortion as the butchering and amputation of living, feeling beings and not the two pill system used in an overwhelming percentage of abortions.


Your statement was loaded, unrepresentative and misleading. If I said people committing suicide as adults is a good argument for abortion it'd be an incredibly poor taste and bad faith argument to raise. I'm not gate keeping you from anything, I'm asking you not to post ridiculous, outrageous and inflammatory statements and false narratives about chopping up babies in a sensitive and complex debate.

 

[Hands]

I used to be rather close to a lady who did flippantly play off her abortions as, well, merely little errands. I don't think they were like that to her, but that's what her public face was, for better or worse. It's not something I was going to bring up with her, considering the likelihood that such an attitude was just her coping method for a process I cannot fathom. However, I do not think it matters if she was truly flippant about the idea. That's what has always puzzled me about the idea of the hypothetical aloof patient at the clinic. Let's say the 'trigger happy' person is far more common than I believe. Why does it matter? Is it because they were not sufficiently repentant? Is there a standard of misery someone needs to meet in order for their choice to matter? Such an idea reveals far more about the person moralising over an insufficiently scarred individual than the individual themselves.

I can't speak for the lady you knew/know, but when we went, girls were throwing up outside, crying and going through cig after cig to try and stop their shaking. My then partner didn't want me to see it, made it harder for her I guess, so I had to wait elsewhere during the first tablet and the talk that comes after. No one in that clinic were treating it like it was another day at the office. I coped with what we chose by trying my best to be stoic, so that it looked to her like it wasn't a big deal and she didn't have to feel guilty. I cried myself to sleep more times than I care to count. I still get uncomfortable picking up babies because I think of the one we didn't have, how old they'd be, where they would be in their education, what they would have been like.

Abortion is one of the hardest things a person can ever go through. It's been six years, I still think about it daily, I still will in another six. We talked about it recently, didnt say much, just that we were both sorry, still thought it was the right decision and then quietly cried.

God knows how women/girls who have been through one and are on PC reading this thread must feel. It's always easy for people to take the moral highground when they've never had to wade through the swamp first.

 

[EnglishALT]

You miss the point. Asking an already living person if they wish they had been cut up in the womb has no relevance to the debate. You used deliberately provocative language to try and frame abortion as the butchering and amputation of living, feeling beings and not the two pill system used in an overwhelming percentage of abortions.


Your statement was loaded, unrepresentative and misleading. If I said people committing suicide as adults is a good argument for abortion it'd be an incredibly poor taste and bad faith argument to raise. I'm not gate keeping you from anything, I'm asking you not to post ridiculous, outrageous and inflammatory statements and false narratives about chopping up babies in a sensitive and complex debate.

Wait hold up, are you denying that surgical abortion procedures ( vacuum aspiration) do not happen within the first trimester of a pregnancy?

Also if we are going to throw around numbers, surgical abortion is used far more ( between 66 to 73 percent over medical abortion because of it's easier access and higher success rates.

https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/vacuum-aspiration-abortion/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6713a1.htm

 

[Hands]

Wait hold up, are you denying that surgical abortion procedures ( vacuum aspiration) do not happen within the first trimester of a pregnancy?

Also if we are going to throw around numbers, surgical abortion is used far more ( between 66 to 73 percent over medical abortion because of it's easier access and higher success rates.

https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/vacuum-aspiration-abortion/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6713a1.htm

https://www.healthline.com/health/types-of-abortion#types


You aren't talking about VAA, you're talking about D&E and trying to pass it off as VAA.



I'm a British citizen, so the statistics I initially used were for here


https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/uk_abortion_statistics/



In England and Wales, the two pill system made up 71% of abortions. In Scotland its around 86%. Only 5% were D&E (which you falsely tried to present as VAA), most of those are medical emergencies or due to an unsustainable fetus.

 

[Neil Peart]

I am pro-choice, no government regulation, at any stage of the pregnancy, ever. Pro-life people are some of the most sour, loathsome people I've ever met, because their desire to control women seeps into every other aspect of their personality. Certainly helped me choose sides. That, and being a decent human being.

 

[gimmepie]

I am pro-choice, no government regulation, at any stage of the pregnancy, ever. Pro-life people are some of the most sour, loathsome people I've ever met, because their desire to control women seeps into every other aspect of their personality. Certainly helped me choose sides. That, and being a decent human being.

Ad hominem doesn't help your case. I'm very vocally in support of equal rights for all. I'm also not 100% pro choice. Not everyone who doesn't want unregulated access to abortion is some sexist right wing nutter.

 

[Neil Peart]

Oh boy, I wish I had read this post before responding. How did I miss this?

However, I think a lot of - arguably most - people on the pro-choice side of the debate are, for want of a better term, too abortion happy.

"Abortion-happy"? Nah, "lack of a better term" won't absolve this hot mess. Despite what you may have heard from whatever moron who implanted the idea into your head, abortions are NEVER a "happy" occasion for anyone. It's a weighty decision that also comes with the guilt and annoyance of people trying to force a woman to do what THEY want her to do. I don't care what news story you wave in my face to justify this blatant disrespect to women, it's a harrowing experience that could be made a lot less harrowing if overzealous religious people would just shut their mouths.

People who are not prepared to risk pregnancy shouldn't be engaging in activities likely to lead to pregnancy. If you voluntarily have sex, even with contraception, you're acknowledging that there is a risk of getting pregnant.

Oh joy, the "pregnancy is punishment for having sex" argument. This one, to any reasonable human being, refutes itself, but I'll play. Well, if you get in a car accident and die tomorrow, why should anyone mourn -- or more importantly, why open an investigation? You knew the risks of operating a motor vehicle, and you went and did it anyway. That was your dumb mistake, and you get to live (die) with it. If this proposition sounds dumb, congratulations -- it's yours wrapped up in a different scenario. Pregnancy is not a punishment for having sex. Why I'm still informing people of this in 2019... my god.

Other living beings shouldn't have to die because you can't handle the results of your actions and there are other options available outside of abortion - although I agree that often these institutions need to be improved on and frankly I think a lot of the money spent campaigning for pro-life or pro-choice laws would be better spent improving those institutions.

Personally, I think other living human beings shouldn't have to be subjected to this kind of guilt-tripping sanctimony; it's torturous. Living beings die around us all the time, and more often than not, they don't get a say. Not the deer out in the field; not the bug to our chemical sprays; not the germ to our soaps and ethanol. All lives that we extinguish, willfully, without thought, because we (as humans!) decided they deserve to die for our own convenience and comfort. But when it comes to an unthinking bundle of cells, people get all hot and bothered. Hey, ask your friendly, neighborhood pro-lifer tomorrow how many children they willfully adopted. I mean, people who argue against abortion always bring up adoption as an option. It's just so, so tragic that more often than not, they don't practice what they preach. Right-wing christians being hypocrites.. shocking.

Also, while I agree that the ultimate decision comes down to the person carrying the baby, I agree that the father should have a fair say in the choice. It takes two people to have a child, but it only takes one to raise it.

No, not in a million years. Why is it that even people who claim to love freedom and personal choice are all too eager to control how a woman handles the thing growing inside of HER womb? This kind of lazy centrist thinking is what leads to those horror stories you hear about a woman's r*pist suing her for custody of the child that came. This idea that men always have a say is patriarchal bullshit that needs to die. If the man can have a say in the clump of cells, then what else can the woman NOT do with her body without a man's consent? Tubal ligation? Contraceptives?

Nice arguments straight out of the Fox News playbook.