Category: Writers Block
It's important to note that I will not be approaching this from a scientific angle, but rather, based on my own opinions and logic. That said, abortion is one of those controversial topics which bare discussing. There are many reasons why women and/or couples choose to have an abortion. I must stress the fact that I don't ever consider abortion to be the first option, in the sense that women who don't wish to become pregnant should always use safe and reliable forms of contraception, such as latex or polyurethane condoms, iuds or hormonal options like the pill or the ring. Those who know, beyond a shaddow of a doubt, that they don't wish to have their own biological children should get sterilised, if the option is available to them, as it's an even surer way of avoiding a mistaken pregnancy. Even they should use condoms if they have multiple partners or if their partners do in order to avoid stds and stis. All of that said, even for couples which do use contraception, including those in which the woman has been sterilised, there is still the chance of pregnancy, however rare it may be. In fertile women, the condom could break, the iud, diaphragm, cap or shield could slip out or their homonal birth control may be affected by various herbs, alopathic medicines, cronic diarrhea, or due to their not taking the pill on time. There are those who might claim that this is divine intervention. I don't know the minds of The Gods so refuse to speak for Them, let alone for deities outside of my religion. If a couple chooses to believe this and is financially and emotionally ready for a child, that's great. But there are simply situations in which it is not realistically practical for a couple to allow a child into their lives. For example, they may already have other children, might need to care for a parent or relative or the couple could be very young and just starting out in their lives and careers, so wouldn't be financially or emotionally ready to make such a huge committment. It could also be that the couple wasn't steady, or were only friends with benefits, in which case they wouldn't necessarily be willing to settle down with each other, get married and have children. Why should anyone in any of these sinarios be forced to carry the burden of bringing up a child, particularly if they did take the necessary steps of avoiding pregnancy in the first place? Given these facts, some might urge Celibacy, even among those of a legally concenting age. But while a few may choose this route, it's certainly not the natural one for humans, so expecting everyone to follow it, or to only have sex for the purposes of procriation is rediculous!
But let's turn to much more serious sinarios. Suppose that a woman was raped. This is a horrifying experience, whether you're a vergin or the towns most permiscuous woman, and is never acceptible. This is not a case where she was simply being irresponsible, forgetful or even simply changed her mind. She was taken against her will and forced into sexual activity. Is it any better to tell her that she must now carry the result of that rape? What if she was a teen and/or her rapist was a relative or even her own father? If your answer has changed, upon hearing that, I must ask why. Is one rape different from another? In all cases, the child will be a reminder of what happened. Again, there are those who are perfectly willing to have a child after a rape. But therein lies the key. They're willing and are not being forced into it.
Then, there are cases in which the life of the mother is at stake. For example, as I said earlier, there is a rare but still real possibility for a woman who has been sterilised, via tubal ligation or Essure, to become pregnant. In such cases, these are usually ectopic, meaning that the fetus stays in the fallopian tubes, which can be fatal for the mother. There are also women who have perfectly normal pregnancies but who may have diseases or other complications which could either kill or cause harm to them and/or their unborn children. Is it honestly right to force these women to carry the fetuses to term?
No parent/guardian in his/her right mind would ever say "I really hope my young teenager has sex soon". Unfortunately, many teens do, and of these, a large number don't use contraception. In some cases, it can be argued that it's because of a lack of knowledge. One would think, given the internet, that they would be able to find accurate information. But most teenagers aren't interested in researching, and even if they did, out of curiosity, look up information on sex, there's no garantee that they would receive it from a reputible source. Some simply ask their friends, who may be just as ignorant. So they may think, for example, that the withdrawal method is reliable, that, so long as the man doesn't have a full orgasm, the woman can't get pregnant or that novelty condoms, such as candy or lamb skin, are just as effective as latex or polyeurithane. This is why it's so important for parents to tell their children the truth and for them to receive safe sex education. Yet even when they know what to do and do it, as with anyone else, it could fail and the women could become pregnant. This is especially difficult on teenagers who haven't yet been graduated from high school, as they either have to give up their pursuit of knowledge, can't do so because they're below the legal age of quitting and/or have to find suitable means of receiving an education and insuring that their child is well cared for in their absence. This is a daunting enough task for those in college or grad school, let alone for those below that level! There are some schools which offer daycare, but this is not available everywhere. Furthermore, caring for a child can impair the growth of such a young mind, since she (or it could be he, if the father took the child) now has to worry about feeding and changing the child, keeping him/her well, making sure he/she naps etc. And of course, babies don't sleep according to a school schedule. So the parent/s could be up all night before the child finally falls asleep at 4 AM. In that case, they would get two or three hours of sleep before having to get up to start their day, leaving their minds foggy at best and totally unreceptive to knowledge at worst. Another problem young teens face is providing for the child. While someone who has at least been graduated from high school can find various entry level or other jobs, someone still in it or who quit can barely do anything today. And even when they can, the pay is hardly enough to get one person by, let alone a child and a partner. Finally, there is the simple fact that most teens simply aren't ready to take on the responsibility of bringing up a child. One might argue that, since they had sex, they must now suffer the consequences. But I believe this is wrong. It's punishing them for a mistake that they shouldn't have made and/or didn't fully realise they were making. Shouldn't the very fact that the woman got pregnant be punishment and scarey enough? Why should she and her partner, who may not even be steady, have to then take the responsibility of caring for a child when they're both children themselves?
Some people talk about the right of the father when deciding on an abortion. While I can understand that some men might, indeed, want to be fathers, it's difficult to decide in their favour in many cases. This is because they're not the ones who have to endure nine months of pregnancy and then possibly many long hours of labour. If the fetus could be transferred to a man, I would say "go for it!" But this is simply not the case. That said, should a woman decide to make the sacrifice, and should the man really have the qualities and financial stability to be a good father, it could turn into something beautiful. But when men try to force the issue by claiming that they have a right to do so, it becomes a very serious problem. If one is that determined, and if the woman would be carrying said child against her will, then let him pay her monitarily for every hour of every day of her pregnancy. I have a feeling that most men would change their minds if that law was put in place.
There are those who honestly believe that all women use abortion as a form of birth control. While I won't deny that there are some who have one after another, seemingly without caring and never learning the lesson about contraception, this is an extremely small handful. That's like saying that every person who owns a kitchen knife will become a mass murderer. Most of us use knives to cut and/or spread our food, to open boxes etc. and would never dream of going into our kitchen drawer, taking out one and brutally killing someone. It's the same with abortions. Most women would rather avoid them, and even when they're very pro choice as I am and know that they don't want a child, most would never take the decision to abort lightly. If it's any consolation, I feel that those who really are that careless should be sterilised.
Finally, there are some people who consider fetuses to be people. I personally don't consider a fetus to be a person. Unless it can survive in the sense of breathing and staying alive outside the mothers womb, it's still a fetus. So technically, I wasn't a whole person when born, as I was two months premature and only weighed 1 lb. 11 oz. That said, I am against so-called partial birth abortions, unless they're done to protect the life of the mother or there was a serious tragedy in the family (death of a partner, child or parent) which would make the mother so grief-stricken that she couldn't care for a new baby. Still, even in such cases, I would recommend adoption if at all possible, since the baby would be so close to being born. But in the early stages of a pregnancy, particularly at the stage where a test can first detect that a woman is pregnant, it doesn't even make sense to call that ball of cells with perhaps a handful of attributes a person. We don't call a newly cut tree a chair, an egg a chicken or a grape wine. So why should a ball of cells be called a person? It makes absolutely no sense to me. Likewise, if a fetus is aborted, why is it wrong to use that fetus and/or embryo to harvest stem cells. It isn't as if the woman chose to abort the fetus for that purpose. But, for whatever reason, it was aborted. So why can't its cells be used to help someone live, see, walk etc? Would that not mean that a part of it is still living, growing and helping another person?
Most of the time, I support a democratic form of government, specifically a republic. But there are times when I believe temporary military rule is necessary, and during such times, I believe that it's acceptible to remove certain rights, either until democracy is restored or until the country has calmed and the process of restoration has begun. Yet I'm extremely hesitant when it comes to reproductive rights. I can agree with banning hormonal contraception, as it can have truly undesirable side effects and can even be dangerous for some women. I can even tolerate, though again, I would never fully approve, abortions being limited only to those which are necessary to prevent the death of the mother or in which the mother was raped. After all, a good dictatorship is supposed to be temporary. But I would draw the line at banning nonhormonal contraception, such as condoms, diaphragms etc. and at not allowing a woman to go to another country to have an abortion performed. In a free society, however, I'm a lot stricter. Not only do I support government funding of organisations such as Planned Parenthood and age-appropriate sexual education classes (including teaching knowledge of stds, stis and protection), I also think that those who harass women at abortion clynics should be arrested and fined on the first offence and imprisoned on the second. There are certain situations, regardless of the type of government, when I believe that abortions should be encouraged and/or inforced. These include when the child will be born with such a debilitating disease that it would either cause him/her unreasonable amounts of pain without hope for a cure or proper management or would be so devistating to the brain that the child would never be able to understand basic concepts, and therefore, would never be able to care for him/herself. I also believe that certain types of individuals, such as the severely mentally retarded, those with disabilities which are sure to be passed onto their children, the criminally insane and those with a history of abuse and/or drug/alcohol use, with no desire to stop the above, should be sterilised. But neither this nor abortions should ever be done on the basis of age, sex/gender, race, religion, sexual orientation etc.
In short, there are many reasons for abortion. Some are medical, some are financial, some are related to maturity and others are simply a decision by those who know that, for whatever reason, they simply don't want a child. So long as the issue has been carefully considered, all are valid, which is why I am pro choice. As for me, I had a tubal ligation on 22 September, 2001, and hope never to have to deal with the issue.
If you enjoy debating and are interested in my thoughts on other matters, I have written a few essays on controversial and mundane topics. Several are posted on this site. The full list, with a link to each, can be found here. As with this one, feel free to read, comment and share.
Notes Categorised
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150338713317371&refid=21
Hello. You raised a lot of interesting points in your essay and I'm afraid I don't have the time to respond to each of them. However, I'd like to add some points of my own.
One of the sayings I often hear from the pro-choice camp is that they want to make abortions legal, safe and rare. Abortions are certainly legal in our country but they are neither safe nor are they rare. If anything, the number of abortions has risen since the passage of Roe v. Wade. However, it's the safety issue I feel a need to write about in that there are so many risks and side effects to this procedure that women are simply not informed about. In spite of the fact that the supposed right to an abortion is all about choice women are not given all of the facts and information necessary to make a proper, well-informed choice. The state of Maryland attempted to pass a law requiring abortionists to show the woman a live picture of her baby via ultrasound and it did not pass. This has nothing to do with a lack of equipment as abortionists already possess ultrasound equipment which they need to perform the procedure in the first place. Yet, these doctors and legislators, who support abortion in the name of choice, deny a woman the option to actually see her unborn child before she decides to terminate his or her existance. This is not about women being forced to view these pictures. It's simply about making it a requirement for a doctor to allow the woman the right to choose whether she wishes to see her baby in the womb before the procedure.
Women who have abortions are twice as likely to have a miscariage during their next pregnancy. It is ironic that you mention ectopic pregnancy as a justification for abortion considering that abortion increases the risks of an ectopic pregnancy significantly. Since the legalization of abortion ectopic pregnancies have risen by a factor of 300 percent.
We also need to look at the problem of post-abortion syndrome which is responsible for many psychological problems such as nightmares and flashbacks. I would think that giving birth to a child and releasing him or her to an adoption agency would be far less traumatic for the mother than going through such grief and pain, pain which women are not informed about when considering an abortion. Some other physical consequences of abortion include sterility, bleeding and infection, risk of a future stillbirth, a perferated uterus, insomnia, loss of sexual interest, sexual frigidity, weight loss, gastrointestinal disturbances and the list of both physical and psychological problems goes on and on. These are unacceptable risks resulting from one of the most common surgeries performed and women are not told about them accurately.
I'd like to address the issue of personhood. You say that you view the unborn child as a fetus, not a person. A fetus is simply a name to denote a stage of human development just as we use terms such as toddler and adolescent. You cannot use the argument that a fetus is not a human being anymore than you could attempt to argue that an adolescent is not a human being.
We can even find some aggreement on this from medical science itself. Take, for example, the medical textbook The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edition, Moore, Persaud, Saunders, 1998. On page 2 it states “The intricate processes by which a baby develops from a single cell are miraculous.... This cell [the zygote] results from the union of an oocyte [egg] and sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being...." Therefore even medical science, not just specific religions, is willing to admit that this newly created life form is human. It also states on page 18 that human development begins at fertilization.
Finally, there is also another consequence which I never hear about but which I think needs some consideration and that is what we have missed as a society as a result of the absence of the child who was not permitted to be born. Consider your own life and imagine that someone has traveled back in time to prevent your birth; whether it was done by abortion or by some other means isn't actually relevant, at least in this hypothetical scenario. This means that, with you having never existed, none of the things you've accomplished will never happen or, if they do, certainly won't happen in the same way. Think of all of the lives that you've touched. It is likely that you may have even said something or did something which, directly or indirectly, may have saved another person's life. Perhaps something you said or wrote to someone inspired them to do something different and positive that they may not have done without your influence. If you have children those children will now never be born and their children, if they might have had any, will never be born. At this point some might say, "come on, not everyone is going to develop a cure for cancer or some other amazing technology that's going to change the world." Perhaps, on one level, this may be true. However, we don't know what each of us, either through our own accomplishments or by inspiring or giving birth to others, might be responsible for. If this is true even for one life then I submit to you that the legalization of abortion has caused this crime to be committed fifty million times. The world will never see these fifty million people and they will never be able to do anything to contribute to our society in a positive way. They will never give birth to those who might have done so, will never inspire anyone nor will their talents and accomplishments be used to benefit us. The lives they have touched and maybe saved will go untouched and unsaved, causing our society to lose the benefits that those people might have provided us. Abortion isn't just a private choice made by a woman and her doctor. That decision has ripple effects that go beyond anything we can imagine.
By that logic, you should never kill another insect again. That insect could have gone on to feed a spider, which would have nurished a bird by being eaten, allowing that bird to eat a seed, then deposit that seed into fertile soil. That seed would then have grown into a plant, lets say it was corn, that corn would then have fed a chicken, which would then have been slaughtered and given to a child for dinner. By killing that insect, your starving that child. That makes you a monster, only monsters starve children. Children need to eat, and by you killing insects, you starve them of their chickens. I bet your still gonna swat a mosquito, aren't you.
That example aside, to claim that we can judge an action now on its metaphysical repercussions down the road is ludicrous. Are you saying then that anyone who refuses to have a child should be raped and forcefully impregnated? After all, they are depriving the world of however many children they might have had, and grand children, and great-grand children and so on. What if a couple decides only to have one child, should they be forced to have another, and another, and another? Does any woman who does not bare as many children as it is physically possible for her to healthily deliver deserve to have them forced upon her?
Next, I shudder at the idea of trusting any quote-unquote scientific textbook which uses the words miraculous and religion so close together. It sounds like that is maybe a theological science textbook, which is not science. Nor, however, is that a discussion for this board. However, it is interesting to think that we can now create a human being of perfectly acceptible health in a laboratory, sans womb, woman, man or any other living support; less the scientists who run the quipment of course. There is no pregnacy, there is no delivery, thus, there is no miracle. If you can explain exactly how it happened, it is no longer a miracle; its just a science experiment.
Now, certainly, you may hold your own opinions on the subject, that is your right. However, where does your right extend to telling someone else what they can do with their body? It does not hurt you until you are involved in a couple who has to make that decision; a situation I hope you are never in. What gives you the right to tell someone else they can't do something?
Also, showing the mother a picture of a baby before having an abortion would A. be impossible in many abortions because they are performed too early in the cycle, and B. serve absolutely no purpose other than to attempt to play upon the emotions of someone who is in a hard enough position already. Please explain to me why in the world you would want to force someone to look at something they either do not want, or are not able to carry. If it is the first situation, the picture will only make them want to get rid of it more; it is loathsome to them and will remain so no matter how many images you show them. If it is the second situation, you will be increasing the pain of an already painful experience. You will be torturing a woman who is already scared, and facing a decision that no one should have to face. That is nothing less than cruelty.
I find it incredibly apalling that you can claim that one of the negative side-effects of an abhortion is nightmares, and then support a law that would do nothing but torture the woman involved. Do you not think looking at a picture of it will give her nightmares? Or do you honestly believe that the emotions she feels that are making her not want to deliver the baby in the first place, will simply vanish because you showed her an image of a lump of cells that looks nothing like a human
I am absolutely against it do to me being a christian.
So killing a fetus, absolutely wrong because your a christian. Killing Muslims, jews, educated women, people who disagree with your religious views, the children of people who disagree with your religious world view, innocent people who just happened to live in a land you see as your holy place, aids victims who die because they were taught that condums are sins against god, the poor who are taught that their suffering brings them closer to jesus christ, homosexuals, abortion doctors, and probably a list of other people who are distinctly not unborn fetuses, those are perfectly ok to kill. Yeah, that's a great way to look at things.
I don't like abortion; I don't think that it should be used as birth control. I do believe that life begins at conception.
For several years I thought that abortion would be okay if tests showed severe debilitating health problems, but then I began to think about it: if health problems were a good reason for aborting an unborn child, who's to say that the medical profession wouldn't have advised our parents to abort us if tests were done showing our blindness?
Kate
What about cases where the woman was raped? What if she doesn't want to go through with the pregnancy?
I have never been in that situation, so I cannot speak to it.
I actually do know someone who was raped, chose to keep the baby, and a year later got married and had two more children. She is by far one of the strongest women I know.
That being said, it would be a difficult decision to make, and one I hope not to have to endure.
While this might not be popular with many Christians, I do believe that abortion is a result of the world in which we live. Good, bad, ugly, or everything in between, I don't believe that abortion on demand was the full intent or approval for abortion. There are some countries in the world where a woman could die if she has an abortion, others in which she is sentenced to jail. This is not the answer either.
I believe in a middle ground somewhere. Women do have the right, whether I like it or not, to have abortions. This does not mean I have to agree with their choices.
The way abortion is being performed in most of the western world, I believe is downplaying the potential risks involved in the procedure. It may be difficult to carry a child to term if the woman chooses to have children later in life, there may be psychological disorders that could be attributed to post-abortion syndrome, and the list could go on. While I am unsure what I think about ultrasound pictures being shown before the abortion, more needs to be done to prevent abortion as the sole means of birth control. In Australia, in some states, a woman has to undergo several weeks of counseling before undergoing the procedure. Perhaps this is something that can be done here?
I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but hopefully it will cause more discussion.
Most of the risks that have been addressed here are associated with late term abortion; a process I think should remain illegal. There is no reason for you to take six months to decide if you want to keep the baby or not. If you haven't decided after twelve weeks, you carry the baby. At twelve weeks, it is still a chemical process, there is no surgery involved, and little risk of side effects. As for psychological problems after an abortion, I can kind of understand why, but I don't think that should be a factor. I hink its up to the person to seek help if they are feeling depressed over what they did.
But all that aside, what does the risk of a surgery matter? There's risk involved in plastic surgery, and that's certainly not illegal. Every surgery has some risk involved in it, your cutting open a human body, of course there's risk. Why should a factor that is present in every surgery ever devised make abortion illegal?
I never said anything about making abortion criminal, just that there needs to be more done to regulate it. I believe that if someone has a certain number of plastic surgeries, the plastic surgeon is required by law to refer the patient to a mental health professional; if a woman has had multiple abortions and is using either chemical or surgical abortion as a frequent means of birth control, perhaps she should be required to do something to ensure that she is educated about safe sex practices and contraception?
I am not naive, however - many women's health clinics (not all) have an agenda encouraging abortion, and many pro-life groups (not all) fail to take into account some of the complexities of a woman's choice.
Since abortion is legal, yes, every woman has a right to it. Do I agree? No, but I realize that it is a fact of our society.
Why, if she is willing to take the risks involved in that, and she never lets it go past twelve weeks, then what does it matter if she uses it for birth control? The morning after pill, which is perfectly legal, is a chemical abortion, and you can use that as many times as you want.
Hmm, I really can't say where I come down on this issue, perhaps to the consternation of some very close to me.
First, I seriously doubt people use it 'as a form of birth control', as is stated so frequently by political expositors.
Like Kate, I think people would definitely use blindness as a reason. In my 20s, in search of genetic and medical history info as an adopted person, I accidentally happened upon some info that I was summarily sent back by the first set of adoptive parents because of their fear of raising a blind child, and the doctor telling them there was no hope. I have nothing against medical people: my brother is one. But they are tasks with the repair of human hardware, no more, no less. Just as I would take your old junker and deem it defective and unfit for modern computer use, they no doubt see missing vision hardware as equally defective.
Even if (hopefully when) I create a sentient and intelligent machine someday, its parts would always remain parts to me. And when they became defective, they would always be seen as defective. I expect no greater outcome from someone tasked with working on the biological and really inefficient hardware we currently have.
So I think Kate's analysis, and that of some close to me, is a pretty fair judgment, even though our approach at the subject may be radically different.
As to when the fetus is sentient, awake or alive? I wonder if both extreme ends of the scale have it wrong. Untold numbers of embryos, rather zygotes - the fertilized eggs - don't make it to their final destination, or when they do, they don't attach properly and are well, dispensed with ultimately, through built-in processes. If it all started at conception, then the only logical conclusion would be that those unborn are done away with in startling numbers. Whether by nomadic peoples' constant movement, hormonal changes, modern birth control, working extended shifts, probably other factors we don't even know about yet. I'm not sure anybody actually thinks that.
However, on the other end of the scale, babies are surviving earlier and earlier outside the womb via artificial means all the time. My brother and his wife had triplets 9 years ago. If I remember right, they were five months along, and only a pound or two apiece. They had to live in incubators for months before they could go home, but had they been born a decade or more earlier, they would never have made it.
If advances continue, life will be able to be sustained in an external biosphere earlier and earlier. At some point, probably not in too far of a distant future, I imagine the whole whose body it is part of the debate will be done away with entirely. Remove the fetus, store it in an incubator, bring it to term, paid for by those who carry such beliefs. When that technology gets here, any nonprofit pro-life organization could offer its charitable services to the unborn just as private adoption agencies offer theirs to infants and children now. It will then be obvious who actually is possessed by strong feeling on the issue: as always, where goes the money, there you know people's real passions actually lie. Should be interesting to find that one out when it gets here.
But definitely making the process of abortion illegal is quite a clumsy and doltish way to go about it. And speaking of clumsy and doltish processes, it's a bit silly how both the pro-life and the pro-choice have played the gender card. You hear the arguments on the pro-choice side that it is men who would control and restrict abortions. Yet, appallingly, when I lived in Florida, I knew a few women who practiced a rather uncivilized practice of carting around cow's blood and in animated fashion showing it to people, as though they were natives from some National Geographic film. Supposedly the blood of a fetus or something. They claimed men force abortion on women. They were as wild, uncouth and crazy as the "dead-men-don't-rape" riotous bunch in the 1990s.
So both extremes blame the male population for abortions, a population that worldwide is 2% less than their own.
Better to leave this to the scientists and others who have the capacity to look at things objectively. Not that we're unwilling to admit we're wrong: we're just far more ready to admit it when we find out why.
Wow.... just trying to digest all this. LOL
Abortion is murder. You don't have to be a Christian to understand that. If you can't handle having a baby, then for Pete's sake, give it up for adoption.
Michael, would you say that to a survivor of rape? if so, I suggest you consider how you'd likely feel in that position.
Oh really? So you're for abortion if the mother was raped? I know what rape is like because I've known two people that have been raped. My grandmother and a 14-year-old friend of mine. I'm sure they'd be very upset to here people say to abort the baby because the woman was raped. I think that to say that kind of bull crap is very selfish and idiotic of that person. I still stand by what I said on that last post. You don't murder a baby just because you were raped or something like that, you simply give it up for adoption. I think that's the better way to do it.
What if you can't physically survive the pregnancy. Which one do your christian ethics kill, the mother or the child?
Didn't you just hear what I said in my last posts? You don't have to be a Christian to understand this. Obviously you would have to kill the fetus if it is life-threatening to the mother. That's the only time I would do it. But aborting it just because you've been raped is very selfish. Alright, I better stop posting here before I get even more pissed off.
guess I'll be considered selfish, due to the fact I wouldn't have given birth to said child if I had ended up pregnant from being raped. what a damn shame some people feel that way. I pity them.
yep I guess i am selfish too. If i was raped i would have an abortion. Who are we to say what other people should do. First of all we have no right to judge anyone because the only one who can judge people is god if there is one. I could go on and on but I feel that other posters have done a better job than I could posibly do
Silverlightning,
Your response to my post doesn't make sense to me and isn't relevant. First, while Ray Bradbury's "Sound of Thunder" presents an interesting chain of events on what could, hypothetically, happen if you squash a butterfly this nevertheless falls into the realm of speculative fiction and has nothing to do with what we're talking about. I've already outlined the potential consequences of killing one human being; these speculations are reasonable and cannot be denied. Killing a mosquito simply cannot have the same repurcussions and it is therefore unreasonable to even compare killing an insect with having an abortion or murdering an innocent human being.
Also, a woman choosing to not get married or to not have children is not the same as someone choosing to kill a human being. That is not reasonable which is why even pro-life Christians do not demand that women continually have children throughout their lives to avoid altering human history.
Also, I don't know of any Christians who are in favor of killing innocent men and women of other religions, condemning AIDS victims and all of the other outrageous accusations you hurled at us in your earlier post. While I'm sure we can find examples of Christians behaving improperly doing what you're suggesting goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity. I haven't seen anyone in this thread in favor of murdering people of other religions nor have I seen them condemning AIDS victims. Please stop condemning all Christians and kindly stick to the topic.
I never thought i would ever say this, but i agree with silver lightening! What is your problem disciple1211.
Maybe I need my head examened but I just don't understand. . And your saying that incects are not as important as people I thought god was supposed to love all of his creations and bla bla bla. If it were up to diciple 1211 women would be forced to have hundreds of children, I had my period this month does that make me a murderor. That egg could have been a baby and it could have been the next scientist to cure cancer, or whatever.
Wow, the woman definitely has the right do not carry the baby fullterm if she gets raped; no-one, absolutely no-one has the right to tell them otherwise.
I'm pro abortion normally but really; Mike, you're not thinking of the big picture really.
Smelly,
Please calmly read my previous posts. I never said that all women should be forced to have hundreds of children. Nobody is seriously saying that women should be obliged or forced to have children throughout their childbearing years. I never said that. No, women who menstruate are not murderers since they haven't killed anybody.
Smelly, your previous post made absolutely no sense whatsoever. What does having your period have to do with being a murderer? WHAT?