Abortion

Thoughts

A planned child is the most wonderful and beautiful thing in the world. An unplanned child is usually an absolute ordeal.

There is a lot of confusion about abortion. Abortion is not a contraceptive method, but an option of last resort when contraception has failed.

Nobody has an abortion, unless they absolutely have to.

The Earlier, The Better.

A few weeks from conception, a fetus is probably not much of a conscious human being yet. Even having a few brain cells cannot imply consciuousness. After that, the distinction may become less obvious.

Even after birth, it tales a child some time to develop any kind of personality. When a child is born, its brain is essentially blank. Within the womb, it has not had significant interactions with other human beings.

Here is my conclusion: it may sound harsh, but an abortion early on in the preganancy is really not that big a deal. In principle, I could live with a law that would make abortion legal only in the first few months of preganancy, but such a law would be to dangerous. You simply cannot yield an inch to the conservatives, or before you know it, you lose a very important right.

Why Choice?

As a contraceptive method, abortion would be traumatic, debilitating, intrusive, dangerous and expensive indeed!

Legal and safe abortion is simply an insurance policy.

We should never forget that in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, it is the woman who is primarily stuck with the consequences.

Access to a safe abortion is essential to a woman's sexual freedom. That is probably the real reason why so many right-wing extremists are so paranoid about the concept.

Why would any reasonable person, especially a woman, prefer to have less options rather than more, when it comes to unplanned or unwanted pregnancy?

Abortion should be considered better option than total neglect of the born child. (It is definitely cheaper.)

You won't hear me say that abortion is right. But one should recognize that situations happen, and then people have to deal with them. It is preferable when you can deal with them legally.

How About Adoption?

Adoption is not a very good option. It is cruel. Forcing a woman to carry a child, and then give it up?

Is This Really Life?

An organism consisting of just a few cells can hardly be believed to have much consciousness (even when born, not obvious).

A beating heart does not mean a conscious human being. An embryo's heart may beat after a few weeks or months, but the development of the brain definitely is not such that one could talk about real consciousness. As a matter of fact, even when babies are born, the exact level of consciousness is questionable. (Please don't misunderstand me: I don't advocate killing babies, I am just saying that after a few weeks, and embryo is not yet much of a human being.)

Conservative Opposition to Abortion Rights

Pro-lifers don't really care about the life. If they did, they would rush to help the kids that are eventually born.

No wonder this is an issue dear to women. If abortion were not an option, they would be the ones stuck with the problem in case of unwanted or unplanned preganancy.

Religious right think they can pass a constitutional amendment banning abortion. This should be the silliest thing in the world. It requires a 2/3 majority. When polled, more than 50% of the population favors abortion rights.

New tactic is one battle at a time. They have already banned (or almost) late-term abortion. Better watch it!

Conservatives want to outlaw abortion precisely because it makes women free

A lot of Republican voters do not realize (or choose to ignore) that the Republican Party has officially made it a goal to make abortion illegal again. (In the platform).

Plank of Republican Party platform: constitutional amendment banning abortion.

Vote carefully. Republicans have a plank in their platform to take abortion rights away.

People who call themselves pro-life are typically the same people who are against sex education and condom machines and testing for STDs. They are also the ones who are ainst pornography and stripping.

Scam?

In my view, the pro-life movement is kind of a scam. They say they are concerned about innocent children, but they are really not. They are not theeople who support Unicef. Instead, they seem to be more concerned about making sure that people (women in particular) get penalized as much as possible for having sex. They really want to restrict sexual freedom.

Some people are determined to restrict abortion rights. If they cannot do it directly by legal means, the do it by imposing more and more bureaucracy.

One of the few organizations, who cares about reproductive rights, and the rights of women:

Planned Parenthood, Your Uncensored Source

To Be Continued

Enrico, 12/24/98, 02/22/01

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