God this, God that. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, why did he even create the idea of abortion? Surely he knew people would abort fetuses. Therefore he is an asshole for not stopping them.

Also of interest... in this older CDC report (2003... reporting through 2000):
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5212a1.htm
It shows, in Figure 1, a sustained decrease since 1990 in number, rate, and ration for the same age group - 15-44.
Table 6 is also interesting... the state I noted before that has only one abortion clinic, Kansas, also has the highest rate of abortions greater than 21 weeks... ...in the whole country. And in Table 7 it reports that Kansas has the third lowest ratio of abortions in the first 8 weeks (i.e. more Kansas abortions are later than 8 weeks than in other states). This right here is a strong argument against restricting access.

that should read: "ratio" not "ration"

Mujus, define "child". Is a 20 week embryo a child? How about 5 week embryo? Is a zygote a child? Is sperm and egg a child? What is your criteria? ...and your faith about Jesus, though nice and all, is not evidence of anything for anyone else.

@ful

"To deny a rise in abortions and then to quote the ''rate'' of abortion without saying exactly what you were measuring them against is indeed troubling."

According to *your* table, the number of total abortions decreased from 1998 to 2008. What are you trying to argue?

Both the rate (which is clearly defined in the table) and the percentage of pregnancies of abortion also decreased from '98-'08. No matter what data you use, the chart you supplied directly contradicts everything you are saying.

lol Mujus (and others?) have started yammering about the divine. As promised, I therefore declare this thread void of educational value and open to a more entertaining style of discussion.

I like abortion. I like bloody fetuses and dead babies. I think children should be aborted after birth if the parents want it. that'll teach the little bastards to ask for more juice when they know damn well it's bedtime.

I also think it should be the fathers decision whether to abort, not the mothers. We need a way to fight back against the gold diggers just churning out babies trying to get a slice of our income. You know that shit happens all the freaking time.

You know what is annoying... Being called anti-choice. Just becaus eI believe in the sanctity of human life doesn't mean I don't believe women have a choice. They have the choice not to have sex and, except for some extreme jackasses like Santorum and the clinic protestors, most pro-life advocates accept rape and extreme risk to the mother's life as exceptions. Women have a choice (except in the aforementioned rape cases) to *not* have sex and to use protection if they are going to be sexually active.

And how would you like it if I referred to the "pro-choice" group as "anti-life"?

@Draug

What if a women does use protection and still gets pregnant?

"And how would you like it if I referred to the "pro-choice" group as "anti-life"?"

I really wouldn't care. I think that would say more about you than about me.

@abge: you can actually double and even triple-protect yourself against pregancy... That's why I'm not too worried about little red-sheds currently roaming the planet.
@Draug and YJ, both of you +1, good comments.

@abge - You are ingoring the very first choice. Don't be sexually active if you aren't willing to care for the child resulting from your activity. The choice is to have sex or not. It's a choice that was actively made in the cases to which we refer.

What if he wears a condom and she's on the pill? That's a lot of protection, but people still get pregnant.

^What Draugnar said.

"Don't be sexually active if you aren't willing to care for the child resulting from your activity"

Why? Sex is fun. Why shouldn't I be able to do it, using a reasonable amount of protection, with the fear of caring for another human life for the next 18 years?

That makes no sense. It is simply your personal view that you are trying to force upon me.

*without the fear...

You are posting too frequently, please slow down.

@abge what if he wears a condom, she's on the pill and she also has this anti-pregnancy thing and also they plan their sexual activities outside the fertile periods?
And also, during these periods they have the kind of sex that doesn't get you pregnant?

@Draug

Also, if you plan on joining this conversation, I'd greatly appreciate it if you read my main post on Page 2, starting with "I wasn't planning on entering this conversation, but since I have..."

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

I'll go back and find it and read it, abgemacht. But real quick, my reasons are not religious at all, in case anyone was wondering. I have recently started trying to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle and even go so far as to get my *unfertilized* chicken eggs and milk from free range and everything from local sources with renewability/sustainability while holding all reasonably sentient life sacred being the goal. I'm not perfect and have had a couple of meat-based meals off on and on since the first of the year, but have greatly reduced my meat footprint and feel a lot better as a result, both mentally/emotionally and physically. So my views are tempered by a level of sentience and I do allow for the morning after pill as well as abortions within the first half of the first trimester - up to 6 weeks. I need to do more research before I consider going for the full first trimester. Better to error on the side of caution.

So I will go read you post back on page 2 and respond later, abgemacht.

OK, just read it abgemacht. I'm afraid I have to disagree with you because I feel at a certain point in the womb, the fetus becomes an infant. I don't believe that is a magical happening resulting from the final birthing process, but happens at some point along the way when the future child develops certain characteristics that make it truly "alive". To me, these are when there is a heartbeat. At that monet, the brain is clearly developed enough to be sending autonomic signals through the nervous system to the heart muscles. It is then a life as much as a field mouse is alive and the choice to abort goes away.

With our modern early detection of pregnancy, the morning after pill, and the like, the woman has plenty of time to learn she is pregnant and abort if she chooses before it is a life. But after that point, I believe the choice is no longer hers because she is carrying an innocent life with no voice to say "Hey! I'm here!"

As far as adoption being such an emotional issue, I know a good friend who was a manic depressive and in her suicide note, she listed the three abortions she had as something she couldn't live with. Pregnancy and *all* it's possible outcomes are emotionally charged for the mother. When you add in the hormonal imbalnaces it brings on the farther along it goes, it gets even more emotional.

Finally, many women and babies (I dare say most first born children) were unplanned back when I was born and before. Yet our mothers still loved us just the same. I was actually a planned child because my mother lost her first one, but he would have been loved by her even though he was unplanned.

Now, with rgards to sex being fun. Go anal. go oral. Neither of those can *possibly* get a woman pregnant. If you are a guy, get your nuts snipped. Fi you are a woman, get your tubes tied. They can actually reverse these procedures nowadays. If you can't afford these, revert to the anal/oral sex. Hell, I love 120" TV screens, but I can't afford one, so I live with a 46". I love Ferraris, but all I've ever been able to afford was a Corvette. Just because something is fun, doesn't mean you alwyas have the right and priviledge to enjoy it. And when you do, the responsibility of those actions is yours to fulfill. I do 165 in my Corvette then I have to face the consequences if I get pulled. I can't just abort the speeding ticket and pretend it didn't happen. I go into a poker game and lose a huge hand, I can't just say "do-over!" and get mny money back. It's about understanding the risks and being willing to live with the results if the worst case happens. If you aren't willing to do that, don't enter into a risky activity.

@Draug

"I feel at a certain point in the womb, the fetus becomes an infant."

I agree. I don't agree with 4th or 3rd trimester abortions. Where I stand on late 1st to early 2nd trimester abortions, I don't know, but I feel at that point we're really just splitting hairs. The point is, I agree that unless the mother is going to die, she can't demand an abortion the day before labor. Exactly how before labor is up for debate, but not the main point.

"With our modern early detection of pregnancy, the morning after pill, and the like, the woman has plenty of time to learn she is pregnant and abort if she chooses before it is a life."

Now I'm simply confused as to what your position is. You just said in your last post that she chose to have sex. Now you're saying she can abort early in the first trimester. I'm not trying to catch you flip-flopping, I'm just trying to understand what your position is.

"I know a good friend who was a manic depressive and in her suicide note, she listed the three abortions she had as something she couldn't live with."

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't feel a suicidal manic depressive who had 3 abortions is representative of the population. I'm sure I could find a women who loves abortions, but that wouldn't be justification for anything.

"Finally, many women and babies (I dare say most first born children) were unplanned back when I was born and before."

Please note in a later post I said that not all unexpected children are unwanted.

"I go into a poker game and lose a huge hand, I can't just say "do-over!" and get mny money back."

But the point is, you *can* abort a baby. That's the whole point. You're acting as if the option doesn't exist when it most certainly does. Look, STDs are also a risk of sex, but if someone gets HIV, you don't say "oh, well, you chose to have sex, have fun with AIDS". No, you get treated as best you can. For *some* women, an abortion is the best treatment.

To be clear, I'm not saying all unexpected pregnancies should result in abortions and I'm not saying 4th trimester abortions are acceptable. I'm saying there's a decent window of time between when a woman knows she's pregnant to when the fetus has developed into enough of a human (the exact range can be debated) in which a women should be able to chose what happens to her body.

@largeham, the better question is, if god knew that the woman would choose to abort, why did he allow fertilization? implantation? development?
Better yet, if we are talking about two lovers, why didn't god just strike the guy with impotency? That'd make for a sexy, sexy evening!

@abge, "I don't agree with 4th or 3rd trimester abortions." I hate to be nitpicking, but a fourth trimester?

@Draug

"But real quick, my reasons are not religious at all, in case anyone was wondering."

That doesn't really matter to me; they're still your personal reasons and you're trying to impose them on people with incredibly intense ramifications.

"@abge, "I don't agree with 4th or 3rd trimester abortions." I hate to be nitpicking, but a fourth trimester?"

I'll refer you to YJ's quote:

"I think children should be aborted after birth if the parents want it. that'll teach the little bastards to ask for more juice when they know damn well it's bedtime."

Lol thank you for the reference. I admit, I did skip most of this thread.
@YJ, hilarious.

I'm all for protecting field mice... but on the scale of things, there are more important considerations. That said, I do appreciate (and actually am surprised) how many of the pro-lifers here realize that the extreme position of every zygote is sacred (in any significant way) is untenable.

As far as anti-choice... yes, that is less than perfect - but then so is pro-abortion. For that matter both pro-life and pro-choice don't give the whole picture either. Pro-life for the embryo - is also anti-choice for the woman during pregnancy... Pro-choice for the woman, is also silent in regards to the embryo and its possible rights. None of these are ideal terms.

As far as suicide... there are certainly plenty of cases where someone goes ahead and has the child and ends up killing herself and/or her children... indeed, that has become something of a phenomena here in the U.S. - stressed out, unhappy, incompetent, mentally unbalanced mothers (and fathers) killing themselves and or their children. Heck - my best friend had a next door neighbor that did that. She (the mother) was clinically depressed for many years - and unhappy about having a child (felt the world was too cruel to have a kid) - even though she loved the child - and one day attacked her 10 year old girl (best friends with my friend's daughter) with a knife - the girl got away (though was cut up) and then the mother proceded to slit her own throat... indeed she cut it so deeply that she darn near decapitated herself. Having kids and loving them (apparently the crazed mother did love her daughter in her way) is not all there is to the picture. This mother obviously was not equipped to deal with a child.

As to being responsible and preventing pregnancy in the first place - sure... I imagine we can all agree that that should be the first line of defense. From a pro-choice perspective, however, "just say no to sex" comes across about as lame and ineffective as "just say no to drugs". There are some very powerful instincts and emotions at work here... ones that have been at work on us for over a billion years... and, like eating and sleeping, are pretty darn hard to deny ...(and as repeated scandals from even the most theoretically [mostly -self-declared] "moral" among us would attest). Besides - the consequences are removed from the causes (by nine months) and the results are less than sure (a fraction of acts sexual intercourse result in pregnancy)... Psychology has shown us that these are powerful forces on us - when the consequences are distant (say cancer for a smoker) they are far less powerful than those that are immediate (say hitting your thumb with a hammer)... and as far as results being less sure, again the affect is strong... consider gambling behavior. Gambling is a classic case of what is called intermittent reinforcement... which is the most powerful as far as its affects, i.e. were pregnancy to result every time intercourse happened (and everyone knew that) I suspect that unwanted pregnancy rates might actually drop. I'm pretty confident that this is the sort of logic that leads some pro-life folks come out against contraception... but, unfortunately, it is an ineffective deterrent... for the reasons stated above (it still has distant consequences and risky behavior is intermittently reinforced). Might as well try to eliminate death by car crash by getting rid of seat belts. People will still drive... and the death rate goes up, not down. Similarly, people still have sex - as much as we think it would be simple to avoid. (Always been the case).

So... what to do... Education is primary (just as in other public health issues) - and tied to this is poverty reduction... and make contraceptions readily and easily available to all (including teens - who account for a significant number of both unwanted pregnancies and abortions). The Netherlands are an interesting case study: contraceptives and abortions readily available, prostitution legal, more sexualized adverts (including bare breasts) than we have in the U.S., drugs legal... and still, in that permissive environment, both teen pregnancies and abortion rates are *lower* than in the U.S. Comparison with the U.S.: red states (generally far more pro-life) have higher rates of teen pregnancy (presumably also unwanted pregnancies) than blue states... So - being politically pro-life ...and all the attendent restrictions on sex education, contraception and the "just say no" approach is not the solution... IMO.

Again, well said, Dexter.

oh - and by the way, basic nerve function as displayed in a beating heart says nothing about gray matter development... the autonomic system is completely unrelated to conscious thought... and can and does exist without it. And along that line, the actual cerebral development consistent with thought does not *start* until approximately the 24 week mark at the earliest. In other words, a field mouse has more thinking going on in its tiny little head than an embryo that is less than 24 weeks old. This is actually fairly well established scientifically (though not well understood by the general public - who is swayed but such details as the presence of reflexes or heart function [as if the heart has any bearing on humanity, contrary to cultural symbolism, other than it being a pump for our blood]).

@dexter_morgan: Ow yeah? Then why does Enrique Iglesias sing about how "he can feel your heartbeat"? Huh?
#trolling #winning