Those of you who equate abortion to “killing babies” are you OK with teenagers having “wet dreams” and menstruating?

My 30 year old friend recently had an abortion. She has no health insurance. She and her partner used birth control that failed. She and her partner are not married, and do not know if they will stay together or ever get married. They both work, but are considered “impoverished”. They do not make enough money to support a child. The idea of going through with a pregnancy, and then giving away a child is not an option either one of them would ever consider. They both believe, strongly, in every individual woman’s right to decide what happens with her own body (not your body, not her cell’s “potential” body, not her mate’s body). They do not believe in God. They are decent, kind people, who have sexual relations, like billions of other people.

Was having an abortion hard for my friend? Yes. She eventually wants to have children, when the time is right for her. Not when the time is right, or “correct”, for society. It was physically painful. It was mentally painful for her too, because there are too many people in our society who would gladly call her a “murderer” despite the fact that she is a kind person who would never raise a fist in anger towards anyone, nor would she ever shoot, or stab anyone to death.

My friend is smart enough to realize that she and her partner are not in a position to bring another child into this world, where the liklihood of that child being shot to death in his or her own school is rising exponentially. They were not willing to entertain the “quaint” idea of handing over a fully realized child of theirs, to a stranger to raise. Some people, like me, think that is somewhat barbaric.

Abortions are currently legal, and at least in my state, safe. They are legal for a reason, they are needed. Not every pregnancy should be brought to term, for very individual and personal reasons.

If you don’t like the idea of abortions, don’t have sex (hope you don’t get raped) and don’t have an abortion. Otherwise, it’s none of your business what any other woman decides to do.

Wow! You mean to tell me menstruating, wet dreaming teens have a choice??? Is there an “off ” switch???

Sperm, eggs, cells, bodily fluids, poop, menstrual fluids, are not life. They are not human beings.

A zygote, fetus, or infant ARE human beings. They have unique DNA, blood type, etc. At a stage earlier than you think, they have a heartbeat, brainwaves, are able to dream, play with fingers, blink eyes, respond to voices, etc.

A pre-birth child is not a ‘potential’ child no matter what you personally think. There are some cultures in the world that believe personhood doesn’t begin until a baby is two years old. There are cultures that believe that baby boys are people but baby girls aren’t people until a certain age, and its okay to leave them in a wooden box and let them freeze to death. There are cultures who believe a woman who is raped must be stoned to death. And there are those who believe that if you have AIDS, you can have sex with a virgin child and it will make you pure and cure you of AIDS. Just because people believe these things, doesn’t make them true or medically sound. The scientific method does not support your position. There is no such thing as a ‘potential child’.

That being said, I would agree with you that not every pregnancy should be brought to term.
It is true that women with little-to-no support from friends, family, siblings—cannot bring a child to term without support or finances while pregnant. But that does not change the reality that once those chromosomes come together there is a real, actual, developing human being which can be observed and monitored.

Is this supposed to be a discussion about Religion and ‘Christian Laws’ if people don’t believe in God? Well, actually, they don’t. Our laws are a reflection of what people vote on. not what people think about God. If someone worships Raggedy Ann and Andy Dolls, or practices astrology, or whatever, it makes no change in what constitutes human life, which is a scientific or medical standard—and the way citizens vote on what ultimately becomes the laws of the nation.

That’s a specious argument.

Sperm cells and eggs are not comparable to a zyogte. A zygote will become an infant, a sperm cell or an egg alone will not. It’s like comparing the elements of water with water itself. Liquid water and water ice are the same thing, just in different states; hydrogen and water ice are not.

Millions of sperm are released every time an egg is fertilized; if people truly believed sperm and zyogtes were comparable, every instance of procreation would be genocide.

I find the abortion debate interesting because of the line, viz. where is it? If you believe life begins at conception, your answer is easy: the line is the moment the sperm and egg join. If you don’t, well, you need to place the line somewhere else. It’s easier to regard a zygote as not being a “real human being”, but what about a 7-month old fetus? Does someone become a human only the instant they are born? Or is it earlier? 5 months pregnant? 3 months? 1 month? Why are people who murder pregnant women charged with the murder of the fetus as well? You must pick a place for the line!

Regarding a fetus as non-human is something people who are pro-abortion seemingly need to do in order for their moral position to be palatable. Because if a fetus is a human being then we have a big problem. I’d prefer it if people who were pro-abortion would simply own what abortion is. I’m not asking you to oppose it or shout “murderer!” at people who have abortions (indeed, I’m not anti-abortion in that I don’t agree with making it illegal) but yes, abortion is ending a human life. Yes it is. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think it should be done or that people who do it are horrible, evil people. But let’s dispense with the circumlocutions and euphemisms and mental gymnastics and call a spade a spade here.

The question makes two bad assumptions. The first is that a sperm or an ova by itself are life. They aren’t. The second is that is equates involuntary actions with voluntary ones. Sorry, I’m not biting on that one.

I’m in favor of a woman’s right to choose but I also feel this question raises false equivalencies and will not promote a productive discussion.

@janbb Same, someone’s angry.

Semantics always gets in the way. I believe one way, other people believe the opposite. False equivalencies mean one thing to some people, and are simply not false equivalencies to other people. Semantics. Always a problem.

Facts are not semantics

@Yellowdog “Sperm, eggs…are not life”

I’ve never seen a dead object swim before. Haploids are alive. Fact.

@Demosthenes “A zygote will become an infant”

Often they don’t. Miscarriages are very common.

@gorillapaws It is true that sperm and eggs have life, but the difference is that the question is trying to conflate their life with the growing of a human being. If a woman menstruates and sloughs the eggs, that is a natural act. Her body is designed that way. If a man masturbates and sends the sperm into a tissue, his is taking action to avoid a human life as well. The sperm will not live in or out of the body very long…about 5 days once it has been ejaculated (into a woman), about 74 days if not. Fact.
The question assumes that there is no responsibility involved in making a baby. It assumes that having unprotected sex is the same as having a menstrual cycle or creating sperm. If you take away personal responsibility, you enter a silly realm where non-equivalences equal each other.

@seawulf575 You’re distorting the argument; you say “the growing of a human being” when @Kardamom would probably say (feel free to correct me if I’m out of line) the “development of a human being.” It may sound pedantic, but precise language is very important in this particular discussion. The way you phrased it implies something to the effect of: you have this complete human, and then all it needs to do is to get bigger, but I think science would agree that an early human zygote has much more in common with a parasite than a day-old baby until much further along in development. It’s not just getting bigger, but actually developing structures, organs and systems that weren’t there before.

Why is it relevant that it’s a natural act? Do you believe things are right/wrong based on whether they occur naturally? Miscarriages occur naturally all of the time. Rape and incest are common in the natural world. Should we not use modern medicine to intervene when nature has struck someone with an illness? The naturalistic fallacy often gets thrown into discussions like these, and get’s applied selectively when it’s convenient to make a point and then equally conveniently ignored when it works against them. If we’re counting miscarriages as being “good” because they’re frequently natural then one could easily make the argument that nature loves terminating pregnancies: 30%-40% of all conceptions result in miscarriage. That begs the question of why God (assuming his/her/it’s existence for sake of argument) would give zygotes souls at the moment of conception if nearly half are going to die, most of which the mother will never even know was a pregnancy. That’s just a bizarre way to set up the universe, and then to get judgie if, for instance, a woman gets raped and decides to terminate on her own? I don’t buy it. You’re going to have to do MUCH BETTER to convince me that you’re right, and 1000 times better if you’re going to convince me that you’re so abso-fucking-lutely infallibly right about this that your correctness overrules other people’s interpretation and should be enforced universally even when it’s against their beliefs. i.e. your case needs to be airtight if you’re going to insist on applying your interpretation of the facts against everyone else.

I have no idea what you’re talking about regarding personal responsibility. Having an abortion IS taking responsibility for one’s actions. I have never met anyone who looks forward to or enjoys having an abortion. I think bringing a child into this word that you’re unprepared/unable to take care of is more irresponsible than giving birth and giving it up for adoption—but that’s my personal belief, I am certainly not so arrogant that I would insist that I’m right about that and force all potential mothers to demonstrate the means to provide for a child or be forced to have an abortion by the State. That would be wrong to force my beliefs on other people. I find it disappointing that the pro-life camp has no problem doing so to others. I find it especially pathetic that many of them are self-professed “small government’ libertarians—talk about silly realm…

@gorillapaws I’m actually pointing out the distortion in the question. It’s trying to compare two things that are not equivalent. It would be like saying that 30,000 automobile deaths occur on our highways every year. If this bothers you why aren’t you upset that we have highways? The highway did nothing, but you are trying to equate it to the automobile deaths.
And the personal responsibility plays in far before the option of abortion. It starts when a person decides to have unprotected sex. Please note I’m not saying when a woman has unprotected sex. I blame men every bit as much, if not more, than the women.
The question that was asked is non-equivalences. It is trying to point out all the ways that a child could be made and that if we don’t make a baby with them that is the same as having an abortion. By that logic, we should ban all iron mining because you could make a gun out of iron.

Let’s go back to Socrates and Plato. The immorality of an act never exists in a comparison. If it is evil it is evil. The question of relative to other sins etc is irrelevant to that