Are you anti-abortion and if so are there any situations where you would find abortion acceptable?

I think people fall on a wide spectrum on this question, and identify with one side or the other. I consider myself to be pro-choice, but not in all circumstances.

I’m pretty sure everyone opposes abortion except in a few exceptional cases. I’d be surprised to find even a single person who believes abortion is always okay in any situation.

@Fyrius: There are many people who fall into the category that you think doesn’t exist.

I certainly don’t like abortion and would rather people didn’t get in a situations were they have too choose but many people do.
I’m for choice, I want a child to be brought up in a home where it will be loved, and the parents are happy with having a child.

I am anti abortion in the sense that i would not do it myself. I find it acceptable in cases of (1) rape or (2) danger of health or life to the mother or in (3) case of a massive deformity that would turn the child’s life into hell. Up to the third month for 1 and 3 , indefinite for 2 if no other option is available other than the mother’s death..
I absolute do not like abortion out of convenience anywhere over 3 weeks.
But of course, i will not support any legislation that would make it illegal. That is a personal choice for every mother, and I have no right to interfere.

@Fyrius Project your own views on everyone much?

Personally, I am definitely anti-abortion. That is my opinion. I can’t think of a situation where, personally, I find it acceptable to abort a child. I believe that when those two zygotes join together, you have a human life. I realize that there are difficult situations that come up, sometimes it seems the child would be ill, mentally handicapped, etc. But, I personally, I think we’re all given something to work with, and it’s up to us what we do with the situation. I think any bad situation can be made great.

@skyfilms85
I’m just being picky but why is it a child at “when those two zygotes join together” as you put it and not before?
I’m not saying I disagree.

@allansmithee: To be technical, one zygote is formed when a sperm fertilizes an egg.

@skyfilms85
“I believe that when those two zygotes join together, you have a human life.”
so it is only a human life it is a chimaera?

@barumonkey
I did think that , but that’s what the other person put.

I hate hate hate abortion, but I know how excruciating the decision is and how awful the circumstances are for some people and I would not put myself in a position of making that decision for someone else. It must be horrible. The last thing they need is my judgement.

” The last thing they need is my judgment.”
Amen sister! :-)

It is such a powerful topic. For me, I would say. It is about he decision the woman makes.
Give her advice, ADVICE but let it be her decision. What ever that decision is support her.
What ever decision she makes is ok.

I’m Pro-Choice, because I feel that women should be able to decide what’s best for them at the moment, however, I do feel there should be limits. I had an abortion when I was 17 and my parents knew nothing about it because of their abusiveness. My boyfriend at the time and I had just broken up and gotten back together, and he pretty much pressured me into unprotected sex (I was naive at the time). Telling me if I didn’t do it then I didn’t really love him, etc, etc. Anyway, I was 15wks when I realized that I was pregnant. I barely gained anything, and my period always skips to I didn’t think much of it. I knew I wasn’t fit to be a parent and I knew definitely NOT in my living conditions. So I had an abortion. It was the most horrible experience, and most painful to say the least, almost unbearable. I still have nightmares about it, I still get upset about it, but I don’t regret it.

There’s women and teens in this world who chose to sleep around with a bunch of different guys and end up having sex and having abortions, that’s not right.

If my parents weren’t abusive, and they were loving, caring.. Would I have had the kid? Probably. But I didn’t want to bring a child into this world knowing I could not give him/her the best possible life. That just wouldn’t be fair.

I feel like it shouldn’t be fair to end abortion all together. What if someone was in my condition, parents who would beat her even more if they found out she was pregnant, what if THEY hurt the baby? What if someone was raped and got pregnant? They should be allowed to terminate the pregnancy if they so wish, right?

@barumonkey
@Likeradar
Is that so? Well, I’m no statistician.
But it’s been clarified to me before that even those who designate themselves as pro-choice still have standards to discriminate between when it’s the right choice and when it’s not. Of course, my clarifier too might have been dead wrong, but I’ve never met anyone who was completely indifferent as to the circumstances. It always seems to be “never” versus “sometimes”, but “always” doesn’t show up.
If there’s anyone present who thinks abortion is all right during any stage of the pregnancy whatever the situation, please raise your hand.

Incidentally, I don’t think I really have any particularly decided views to project onto anyone else. I notice I often find myself defending the pro-choice side, but that’s just because their opponents use arguments that make my skin crawl.

@Fyrius: To quote @chelseababyy, “There’s women and teens in this world who choose to sleep around with a bunch of different guys and end up having sex and having abortions.” <—Those people think it’s OK.

In general, if there is an opinion that is possible to have, then at least one person has it.

@barumonkey
All right, point taken.

I could argue that people like that don’t count as pro-choice, since they probably couldn’t justify their behaviour and pro-choice is a political, ideological stance, but that would probably count as moving the goalposts. So I should probably just admit I was making an overgeneralisation.
Now my only reasonable way to deny that conclusion is by questioning whether these people really exist. But I suppose it wouldn’t really be unreasonable to assume. Especially considering your concluding statement…

“In general, if there is an opinion that is possible to have, then at least one person has it.”
A good rule of thumb.

@Fyrius I know plenty of people who are fine with abortion.

As for the political contraversy over abortion…I think arguing over whether an embryo/fetus it is a life is irrelevant related to law. The point should be that the GOVERNMENT should not be able to tell a man or woman that they must support another life. The GOVERNMENT should not be able to say to a man you must donate a kidney or give blood, and a woman should not have to do it either. Being pregnant you do give up some nutrients in your own body, take on some health risks, etc. So from a legal point-of-view I don’t see how anyone can feel comfortable criminalizing abortion.

For me personally, after the 6th month, when the baby is viable, I would be very uncomfortable aborting, unless there was a choice of the mother survivng vs. the baby, then I would always choose to save the mother. During the first trimester I have absolutely no problems with it at all for any reason.

@JLeslie
I’ll have to ask for some more nuance before I accept your acquaintances as a reason to further change my impression of the opinion pool. Please excuse my curiosity.
Are they fine with abortion for any reason (including none at all), at any stage in the pregnancy, and are they fine with this for principled reasons? And if so, do you have any idea what those reasons might be?

@Fyrius I know three people who are fine any stage of pregnancy for any reason, because they feel a woman has the right to have control or domain over her own body. I would say 95% of the women I know who are pro-choice are completely fine with an abortion for any reason in the first trimester. Beyond the 4th month people vary a lot. What I do know is that if the fetus is evaluated not to be able to survive, women want to be able to abort, even pro-life people I know have had abortions when they found out their fetus had basically no brain or some other catastrophic abnormality, mostly because the people I know wanted to be pregnant, and can’t get pregnant while they are pregnant. Plus, many women dread the idea of being pregnant with a dying fetus, other women want to let nature takes it course.

@JLeslie
Thank you.

@Fyrius Also, what I have found is that if you are very liberal on the subject of abortion, people are more open and honest about abortions thay have had. One pro-life couple I know who had one in their 4th month, because the fetus was not going to be viable. They had to go out-of-state, because abortions are not done past 14 weeks where we live. They told their parents, and were VERY fearful their parents would dissaprove, but surprisingly their parents were very supportive. I would bet money that they did not tell anyone in their religious community what they did, that they would not challenge people who seem to be completely against abortion to vote differently. My point is, I am getting off track, because I get fired up on this subject, is that you are more likely to know pro-abortion people and their honest feelings if you are vocally pro-choice yourself, and also if you are a woman you would be more privy.

Pro-choice. In my mind, there’s no arguing it—it’s a mass of cells that is not a person. In my opinion, it is not a person until it could survive outside the womb, which is so late in a pregnancy that abortions aren’t done then.

I am pro-life. However, if it was a case of rape or other extreme circumstance, I would be okay with terminating the pregnancy.

Here’s my opinion: People should be responsible for their actions. If they want to have unprotected sex (or just sex at all), they should accept the fact that it could result in a pregnancy and they will have to bear responsibility if it does. I think it’s cruel for someone to take a human life so that their life will be better—that’s where I think society is going with the whole pro-choice movement. If you have a an old relative who is very sick, would you “pull the plug” on him so your family wasn’t stuck with hospital, travel, etc costs? I think that would be a greedy and immoral thing for anybody to do. It’s the same idea with abortion.

For people that argue that the child “wont’ have a good life” if it is born, let me ask you…would you rather be dead or have a “bad” life? And also, many states have “safe-haven” laws, where you can bring any newborn to your local fire station/police station/etc, and give him/her up there…no questions asked. With those laws in place, I really see no reason to terminate a non-rape pregnancy.

I am against abortion (I’m generally a very liberal person otherwise). However, if the child is unquestionably brain dead I could see an abortion being an alternative. As a side note, someone mentioned that the embryo is just a mass of cells, but adult humans are also just a mass of cells (both adults and embryos look the way they should for their respective levels of development). Also viability outside the womb without life support doesn’t seem to be a good standard because most premature babies (not to mention the very ill, people in comas, etc) require some form of life support as well. I think the only legil issue is when we as a society care when life begins and ends.

That being said I am understanding of people that have abortions and feel we should work to reduce things that would tend to promote abortion, e.g. poverty, lack of support, deadbeat dads, etc.

@FrogOnFire I have always been confused by the rape exception. If you believe stringly it is a life, why are you ok woth “killing” it if it is the case of rape? Also, euthanasia is a separate subject than abortion in my mind, although I do see how it can relate. For me you could argue it is a euthanasia question when the fetus has something wrong and it will die either before term, or shortly after birth, then it is hastening the inevitable. Killing someone because it will cost the family a lot of money is awful to me, but typically people are actually kept living LONGER than they want, because of how our laws are set up now, AND it costs the family or society unnecessary money.

@jhp I never said without life support. Premature babies need help, sure, no one’s denying that.

samanthabarnum, I did not say that you said “without life support”. My comment was to illustrate that there are many situations where someone cannot survive without external assistance, so it is difficult to draw a line simply because of survivability outside of a womb. At some point we may be able to grow humans from embryoes without wombs altogether. So perhaps this is an issue that would best be dealt with at that time.

not JLeslie, samanthabarnum. sorry about that.

it shouldn’t be a method of birth control. but then again, like someone said above, the last thing women in these situations need is my judgement.

i’m pro choice, but if i were pro life i cant imagine thinking “oh that 14 year old girl got raped, she should have no choice but to have this child”.....

I am pro-choice mostly for the reasons that @chelseababyy has already stated.

Life is not always black and white and I FIRMLY believe that you can never say exactly what you would do (even if, at the moment you think you are completely, 100% sure of what you would do) until you are in that situation.

Personally I have no reason why, if I fell pregnant now, I would need to abort (ie: health problems, financial problems, support etc). It wouldn’t be ideal but I could make it work. However, I still can’t say, hand on heart, that if I did find out that I was pregnant now that I wouldn’t have an abortion. I admit that it would be purely for selfish reasons and because of this I can’t say that I only agree with abortions under certain conditions.

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t, in any way, like the idea of abortions but I will never judge a woman who decides to have one even if she appears to have no real reason for it.

Abortion on demand. I cannot judge, and if there is a medical procedure to deal with it, then it’s fine by me.

on sarah palin , oh its to late . well in horrible situations of rape and if the mother wants it she has the right to.

I just wrote a lengthy response, only to realize I was kind of answering the opposite of this question.

So, I will just say this: @JLeslie, the reason I see @FrogOnFire‘s rape exception to be valid is that his argument is personal responsibility. A rape victim is not responsible for her own rape or any resulting pregnancy.

Also, @Fyrius, there are definitely people who believe you are all in or all out. Last time this came up I was told more than once that I am not pro-choice because I do not believe abortion as birth control is an acceptable practice.

@Supacase How does personal responsibility have anything to do with the fact that a pro-life person believes there is a life/soul in there? So that life is less worthy now because of how it was created? Also, if it is just about personal responsibility are you going to hold a 14 year responsible for a mistake she made? I think we pretty much acknowledge as a society and scientifically that the young teenage brain does not have a firm grasp of consequence.

My personal goal is zero abortions worldwide as a result of zero unwanted pregnancies. Couples have to think about the consequences before having sex. Casual sex without clarity about contraception is irresponsible.

Good sex education will lead to good birth control measures (let’s be glad that Sarah Palin isn’t Vice President). We also need to fight religious dogmas that tell people not to use contraception.

I am against punishing women or doctors for having an abortion. Free societies can’t force women to have a baby against her will. But as I said earlier the goal should be it never comes to that. But if it does, women need all the help and support of society including good counseling.

So, I am against abortion and pro-choice.

There are very few cases when abortions are acceptable. Examples are rape and the almost certain death of the mother of the unborn child.

Every time the choice to abort or not came up in my life, I kept the child (I miscarried once) – that has be my experience and it doesn’t have to be indicative of what it must be like for anyone else out there – yes I agree in many parts of the US and the world, factual discussion of sex and contraception are lacking and that’s very unfortunate…yes I agree people should think more before having sex but shit happens…I remember reading someplace that most women who get abortions are mothers and I bet they are not doing so out of carelessness but because they understand what it would be like and put their existing, actual living out of their body children first…that is more responsible, imo, than to honor whatever idea of sacred life/ensoulment/human life you may hold…I believe I attach a lot less emotional value to the cluster of cells developing into a human being inside people and that’s just fine by me…I will always be pro-choice and non-judgmental about it…it’s a very hard decision for some…and if others use it as a form of contraception then they shouldn’t parent anyway…and there is no reason to have a child just because ‘someone someplace will be kind to it’ as clearly there are hundreds of children in our foster systems not being taken care of, so that random good samaritan idea dosn’t work…and I believe ‘organizations’ that lie to young pregnant girls about how it’s better to give up the child for adoption are simply criminal

@Simone_De_Beauvoir very, very well said. i agree very much that girls who will use abortion as a method of birth control should not be parents anyhow.

@deni thank you