Legion, I am not speaking for anyone else. I am speaking for myself. It is the way I feel...for myself. Don't try to plug it into your feelings on the matter.

Legion...Just about a zero birth rate in Africa...

I think that would be a good thing for them. How many don't make it past infancy or early childhood? How many are orphaned due to AIDS and other diseases and left to fend for themselves or hope for the largess of ... wait for it... US! If thier birth rate was lower, the standard of living would increase. I guess that would be a bad thing, though, huh? It's far, far better to bring'em into the world to starve and scavage like a wild animals than to have smaller families that have a chance to not only survive but perhaps thrive. Yeah, THAT'S the kind thing to do.

Suzy, that doesn't make any sense.

That is almost like saying that if a person was not born in a prosperous country, or to a family of wealth, (and a lot of wealth family seem to just tolerate there children, not love them), that the person would not want to born at all.

Man oh man talk about population control, no slum dog millionaire Indian children, just about a zero birth rate in most of Africa and a lot of Latin America.

Do you understand how flawed your comment " If I had been in the situation that some of the kids are thrust into, I would have wanted to have never be born." actually means?

Johnny,
My reasoning comes from personal experience. My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 2 months. What I saw did not look human, as we know it. I have no idea why, but I didn't feel a loss. I never felt connected until they started moving. I'm sure that this is the reason why women have abortions early in the pregnancy and don't feel remorse. They were totally disconneded from the fetus.
I also believe that in a lot of instances, abortion is better than what the child gets after they are born. Unwanted, unloved, abused, thrown-away, children are better off not being born. Death is kinder.
If I had been in the situation that some of the kids are thrust into, I would have wanted to have never be born.
I very well may be wrong, but my God does not want His Children, and babies, to suffer. No one will ever make me believe that. And, in each individual situation, can anyone here say that it isn't God's will? No one can....that's why I do not condemn women who choose abortion. I am not God and I do not know what his plans were for that individual.
Abortion cannot be stopped. Women that truly want one, will get one. the women who can afford it will go to another Country and the women who cannot afford it, will do it themselves, or find a butcher to do it for them.
with that being said, once the baby is viable, and can live outside the womb, abortion IS NOT OK. Women have to make up their minds in the first trimester.

First, thanks for keeping this civil.

Take faith out of it and one could argue that there is no proof a soul exists at all. Does this mean your life is less valuable?

I am really struggling to see your point. So far you end up at two opposing places, both equally heinous: 1) Life is disposable as long as there is a soul to live on in afterlife, and 2) If there is no soul, then there is no problem with extinguishing human life.

Methinks that you, as a smart, compassionate, and caring woman, are attempting to logic out something that causes a ethical conflict within yourself. Rightfully so as you seem to understand the dire results of abortion and finality of the act, yet seem reluctant to divorce yourself from the hedonistic mantra (if it feels good, do it) that keeps abortion in existence.

BTW, the abortion argument goes way beyond faith, it goes to the very heart of human civility. At some point, you will either need to accept that killing of innocents is ok if it helps you achieve a desired comfort level; or, you will need to draw a line in the sand that says this is too far, no one has the right to impose death upon another for mere convenience sake.

The point is, a soul isn't lost because of abortion. There is no evidence that the soul even enters the body until the first breath is drawn.
And, how many human bodies are going to go to heaven?

WWW, anyway you slice it, you keep ending up at the same point, that being: the very lives of the innocent are less valuable than the state of inconvenience of another, an inconvenience created entirely by her own actions. Its really pathetic that we even have to have this debate.

Suzy, I suppose now you are a proponent of the Spanish Inquisition, or Darfur, or etc etc. I almost fell out of my chair when you commented that mortality in meaningless as long as there is an immortal sole. A twisted person could take that to mean that no life has any value, including yours. Take that to extreme and it means the best solution for a woman wanting an abortion is extermination of both mother and child. Another example of the slippery slope into moral relativism.

The human body is not what's important, or else it wouldn't age and die, and be returned to dust. It's the soul that counts. A soul is not wasted when abortion happens.

I just read an article that said that 2 million babies and mothers die every year from complications of childbirth

http://www.kristv.com/global/story.as...

Most of the deaths are the result of poor medical care. I wonder how many deaths in the United States are directly caused by the lack of funds for healthcare, no insurance, and the pre-existing conditions fiasco?

Johnny...You're probably right about there being no unwanted infants in the country. Yeah, people are wanting to adopt INFANTS. There are, however, bunches of older kids who would like to be adopted, but the prospective parents only want infants.

All forms of birth control have a certain failure rate. It might not be very high, but if it happens to YOU, it's 100%. You seem to be willing to force a woman to give birth to an unwanted baby because her (or her partner's) birth control method failed. (you seem to not like the term brood mare, but that's what you're advocating) Not all unwanted pregnancies happent to careless and slutty women who don't care. A great many happen to married women who are conscientiously using birth control in the prescribed way, but got caught in the small percentage of failure. I thought sure that Ken was going to use the "gift from God" argument, but he instead called it "knotted together in it's mother's womb" by the hand of Almighty God". I can't help but wonder if God is all mighty, all knowing and all powerful, why in his infinite wisdom, he allows conception to unwilling women. I mean, he's God; he knots together the baby in the womb. Why not refuse? There are a lot of women who desperately want a baby and there are a lot who desperately DON'T want a baby. Is he just playing games with women -- granting some a wanted child, denying others and then, worst of all, giving a child to those who not only don't want one, but have no business with one -- addicts, alcoholics, abusers, etc. Something doesn't add up here.

Partial birth abortions happen every day in the United States and abroad. Has no one ever read the story of the twin who lived after a botched abortion? Has no one ever read that female babies are killed in partial birth abortions every day in China? Folks, I agree, that abortion is an abomination, the devaluation of life at its worst.

TxB:

You just went to the very heart of the issue, and unwittingly (or maybe by intent) exposed the truth of the matter. This being:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN UNWANTED INFANT IN THE USA.
There are not even any orphanages left in the US. There are waiting lists years upon years long for people looking to adopt babies, race and sex irrelevant.

Somebody is going to try to twist this around as a promotion for breeder slaves, an inflammatory and intentionally false accusation borne of desperation to find any moral grounds for their support of abortion.

If some people want to live a carefree lifestyle, and degrade their bodies for simple pleasure sake, i.e., people who have a predisposition toward abortion as opposed to responsibility for actions, then maybe we need a program to allow for the reversible surgical sterilization of such people (despite that currently exists with free, or near free, birth control pills and many other contraceptive options galore). That way they can live in as much debauchery as they want, yet not end up burdening another innocent mortal being while doing such.

You people talk as if contraception is some strange mystical thing that magically happens without any involvement of the woman. Contraception can be prevented, in many ways. However, it does require responsibility and a realization that the procreative parts of the human body are far more than some playground open to unprotected romping around on by people to whom you do not have a strong commitment to.

Other than rape, there simply is no excuse for a woman to end up with an unwanted pregnancy. It is simply an exercise in poor judgment.

Then to sentence another genetically individual person to death because the effects of that poor judgment is too inconvenient to the person who committed the poor judgment, is absolutely reprehensible.

At one point in our past, there was considerable debate as to the nature of a fetus, its abilities and processes, as to whether or not it had met a “human” threshold. Over the years, especially in recent medical advances, it has become incontrovertible that the fetus is an independent being with individual and unique thought processes from relatively early in its gestation. It is only temporarily reliant on its protective cocoon and becomes less reliant as time passes (a relatively short time span at that). As a result, it has become widely accepted that late term abortion is an iniquitous act. Which baits the question, if its wrong to kill an advanced fetus, why would it not also be wrong to kill that same fetus earlier on. All it has done is grown and developed. It is the same fetus, the same unborn human baby. It has not morphed and changed genetically. The thought process which attempts to divide a justification for killing of a fetus based on its state of gestation is just as flawed as the barbarians of old who justified slaughtering the children of their enemies because those children might grow up to be enemies.

Abortion is purely a form of after-the-fact birth control. One that is based on the fallacious idea that the bad behavior of one individual can be immediately absolved by placing a mortal onus upon another. Any other argument is merely an attempt to shift focus from this basic fact.

Let me throw this into the mix:
Since there are many children taken away from neglecting parents, as RUK says, and there are so many abortions done but yet there is a tremendous waiting list for adoptions that there is a big buisiness in adopting foreign babies.

Couldn't these two issues be put together somehow? It may not solve the total abortion issue but might save quite a few babies.

I had some kinfolk that couldn't conceive but wanted a child so they looked into adoption. It took around 5 years for them to finally get to adopt a baby boy. (I wonder how many abortions were performed during that time??)

There is also "Private adoption" that the adopting parents are involed during the pregnancy and the birth of a child along with being responsible for the hospital bill.

unfortunately Kenneth, it probably wouldn't be legal for you to take too many babies.

Ken...I'd say a few thousand out of thirty or forty million (depending on whom you believe) is a pretty low number, but, as I said, I agree with you about the partial birth abortions -- they shouldn't happen. The woman should have had her mind made up long before that she didn't want the baby.

Judging by what you say, you want to make all abortions illegal, thereby requiring women who don't want to have a baby to become brood mares so people like you can raise them. Do I have that right? What about women who never heard of you or live in an area where there are only old curmudgeons like me and people like you are non-existent? What do you propose to do with kids who are born because God-fearing people caused the laws to be changed to require births in all pregnancies, but then don't do anything for the kids after they're born?

I understand the horror a woman feels when finding out she's pregnant when she doesn't want to be. My wife and I had those fears and I would have done almost anything to change the situation we feared. We were fortunate -- she wasn't pregnant. She had some female plumbing problems that eventually required surgery to correct. The Ob-Gyn said that he doubted she could have conceived. But, by then, I'd visited the wonderful folks at Planned Parenthood and spent the best $75.00 I ever spent to take the worry out of being close. Not everyone is that lucky and people like you would force them to have a baby they don't want. Any you talk about me being a barbarian! How about you take care of your own family and stay out of the private, personal lives of people you don't know?

Kenneth, I figured it should be with this blog.

victoriaparent06 had this to say...

.... it takes away an eternal life.

How do you figure that?

My side?

Someone has to stand up for those innocent human beings. Not only does abortion take away a life on earth, it takes away an eternal life.

Kenneth, maybe you should post your address here, so women will know where to bring the babies???

Kenneth, you keep using the partial birth argument even though you know that they are very rare. Yeah, they're performed too late. Unless there's some sort of medical emergency that threatens the mother's life, they should not be done. That haveing been said, however, you should recognize how very rare they are and not use them as your argument.

I wish abortion wasn't necessary, but I do understand very well the feelings of dismay and dread that could lead a woman to choose to have one. It would take a BARBARIAN to force a woman to give birth when she doesn't want a child -- for whatever reason.

I don't know if you have kids. I have read that you are getting married soon. My suggestion to you is that if you and your wife conceive and you both object to abortion, you probably shouldn't have one. With all your objections and name calling, you overlook the fact that no woman is required to undergo an abortion if she doesn't want to.

Abortion is properly a private thing between the woman, her husband if she has one, and her doctor. It's none of your business. If you feel so strongly, just don't participate! It's REAL simple.

Kenneth, you do realize that Thomas Paine was a Deist don't you? "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish,Christians, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." Thomas Paine -----My mind is my own church-Thomas Paine

First we took God out of the schools, thanks to Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the ACLU and a liberal Supreme Court. Then the education establishment discovers moral relativism, i.e. there is no good and evil, only personal choices; what I consider good you may not and vice versa. Moral relativism becomes the religion of the universities in this country and begins to filter down. The end result was, sadly, very predictable. The barbarians are not at the gate, they are everywhere among us.

Abortion is an expletive as far as I'm concerned. The choice to end a life that cannot defend itself can only be left up to the human being who is carrying it inside. After that, any doctor should be able to either perform the dispicable act, or refuse to. It's a human being and re-defining it to lessen the loss to our species is pretty low on the scales of morailty. God will have his vengance and we will all have a front row seat.