<p>what about the baby?
in the case of tay sachs- it is fatal- death occurs by age 5.
should we allow mothers who have prenatal testing indicating they are carrying a tay sachs baby, to end the pregnancy?
There is no treatment.
Symptoms of classical Tay-Sachs disease first appear at 4 to 6 months of age when an apparently healthy baby gradually stops smiling, crawling or turning over, loses its ability to grasp or reach out and, eventually, becomes blind, paralyzed and unaware of its surroundings. Death occurs by age 5.</p>
<p>sjmom, you’ve said
In fact, I haven’t assumed anything. If you’ll go back and look, you’ll see I didn’t express any opinion regarding abortion, under any circumstances, whatsoever. What I do think is that government shouldn’t enact laws which prohibit or require individual action based on anything less than a clear societal consensus. A law allowing or banning abortion, or limiting it to circumstances a, or b, or c, is a serious matter. It does infringe on the life of the pregnant woman. And I don’t think that government should be making tha decision on the basis of opinions which are formed and changed every few weeks based on a textual analysis of what a word means, or how upset a person gets over the sight of aborted fetuses or dead women lying in dark alleys with blood seeping out of their skirts. If an issue is subject to this much disagreement among reasonable people (let alone the easily enraged) government should simply stay out of it.</p>
<p>That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be free to express your opinion, and utilize your personal authority to try to see that that opinion is adhered to - just that you shouldn’t have the police power of the state behind you when you do.</p>
<p>
But I was saying that we don’t allow people to decide whether or not it’s okay for citizens to take the life of another human being – we DO have laws against that.</p>
<p>How about all these pro-life people throw their energy into improving the quality of life of those already living. There are thousands of homeless, starving children looking for a roof over their heads and this doesn’t seem to concern pro-lifers. What do you really think is going to happen to this boom of children born if Roe vs. Wade is overturned? Do you really think all these unwilling mothers will turn into ‘supermom’? Do you think the already corrupt and overwhelmed foster care system is going to magically fix itself and grow these children into being responsible and moral citizens? We are already seeing the disastorous affects of overpopulation, but of course running the earth (for which there is currently no replacement) into the ground doesn’t concern you in the least because as long as the kid’s a live it’s all good, right?</p>
<p>In all honesty, if a woman decides to bear a child that’s her choice and that is wonderful. But if a woman decides she doesn’t want HER life ruined to carry a cluster of cells to term, who is society to tell her she can’t? It’s HER body, she is the one who has to go through the emotional and physical pains of carrying a child, not society. She is a WOMAN, not a baby making machine. </p>
<p>Mistakes will, and do happen with BOTH sexes. Men just don’t have to live with the conseqences of their screw ups and it sickens me when a man tries to tell ME that it’s not my choice what will and will not occur in my reproductive track. Before lecturing about women being more responsible how about you try teaching the men to keep their pants on. It takes TWO people’s mistakes, not one, to make a child. But even in our supposedly, ‘progressive’ society it’s the woman’s fault for getting pregnant while the man sews his oats about the countryside.</p>
<p>Overturning R v. W may secure the life of many balls of cells, but you’re ruining the lives of living, breathing, thinking women long before.</p>
<p>“How about all these pro-life people throw their energy into improving the quality of life of those already living. There are thousands of homeless, starving children looking for a roof over their heads and this doesn’t seem to concern pro-lifers.”</p>
<p>How do you know what anyone else is doing to make life better for those who are less fortunate? </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.feministsforlife.org/who/aboutus.htm[/url]”>http://www.feministsforlife.org/who/aboutus.htm</a></p>
<p>For the few who do both, there are thousands who only do one sjmom2329.</p>
<p>
Blanket statement: Any time you think you’ve figured out a complex and hotly debated issue simply by defining your terms, you have oversimplified. sjmom - the laws regarding murder and abortion are different. That’s because, as a society, we don’t have a widely agreed upon shared belief that they are in fact the same thing. The fact that you have satisfied yourself that they are is valid for you. It doesn’t mean that you have discovered a “truth” upon which all must agree. In fact, most people disagree that abortion is indistinguishable from murder; the closer to the time of conception the more most people find it to be different. (Not expressing my personal opinion, just observation.) So defining abortion as “the same thing as murder” may make the issue suddenly black and white to you - but it’s still grey to the majority of people in our society, who see a distinction. And that lack of agreement is still why I say it’s not a proper area for use of government force to control the behavior of individuals.</p>
<p>Aries, a problem arises because abortion is a binary decision that can’t be compromised: one individual’s decision must prevail. I don’t think a politician’s or a religious figure’s–shades of creeping ayahtollahism–opinion is the answer. </p>
<p>You might say that if the woman doesn’t want a solution imposed upon her, she shouldn’t have sex. I would counter that if a man doesn’t want a solution imposed upon him, <em>he</em> shouldn’t have sex. If nothing else, this might make more men suddenly very attentive to issues of birth control and practice thereof.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, with no aspersions to anyone here, for I don’t believe that anyone has declared themselves, one way or another, most of the loudest voices against abortion are also against birth control and sex education outside the “abstinence” realm; certainly, the leading organizations, such as Focus on the Family and Family Research Council are. </p>
<p>If someone warrants to me that the are anti-abortion but in favor of unfettered access to contraception and fact-based sex education, I will give them a warrant a la Richelieu, a safe conduct pass from harrassment in discussions such as these, signed by two of my on-line names and my True Name, that they may produce whenever deemed expedient to do so.</p>
<p>SJMom, Kluge–as often the case–answers the question so much better than I do. Law is a matter of societal agreement.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree. The point I was trying to make is that abortion is the decision of exactly one individual - the soon-to-be-mother. I do not think it should be - legally or morally - the decision of others. </p>
<p>It is often said that you decide policy matters based on the “faces” you put to the people affected by a statute. Those who oppose parental consent laws are those who see a child, pregnant by incest, as the one who would have to receive consent; those who favour them see a teenager, a product of a healthy, stable home, as the pregnant lady.</p>
<p>I’m all in favour of men not having sex. What ticks me off is pro-lifers who think that improving education and abstinence among women does anything helpful. It’s usually men who want sex; men who think that a condom makes everything okay; men who don’t care about the consequences, and men who will yell and scream when a woman tries to abort “his” child. Their massive contribution to the pregnancy in question is a lot of pleasure, yet they demand equal rights in decision-making and happily promulgate the idea that women should live with the consequences of their actions.</p>
<p>Rant over. :)</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about this for years, and while I have in the past vascilated wildly, both to the left and right of center on the issue of abortion, I have now come to think of myself as both pro-choice AND pro-life. I believe, for the most part that the decision to abort a pregnancy should be that of the pregnant woman. For the most part, government should pose no restrictions on the excercising of that right (and I do believe it should be a part of a woman’s fundamental right). </p>
<p>Having said that, however, I have serious problems with the late term abortion of fetuses that might otherwise be viable outside the womb. I have a problem, too, with the brutality of some abortion proceedures, particularly when they take place late in pregnancy (partial birth abortions, in particular, are about as gruesome as the guillotine, only slower). </p>
<p>But what I REALLY have problems with is the way in which both women AND men so often engage in casual unprotected sex, without the first thought as to the prepercusions of an unplanned pregnancy. It’s not just a “cluster of cells”. There really is a potential human being in there. Denying it that potential is a woefully grave decision, one that should not be made lightly. </p>
<p>And like TheDad, I am totally in favor of unfettered access to contraception and fact-based sex education. Ignorance is never good, particularly when it comes to young people having sex. And while they are handing out the condomes and explaining the mechanics in sex-ed, I hope they are tackling questions of the potentially emotional, moral and spiritual impact of sex. I believe that many of our young people are particularly adrift in that regard, having being left to figure it out between themselves for far too long.</p>
<p>I agree that too many people have sex without thinking of the risks- the bigger problem is that people who don’t take responsiblity for their own bodies, are not the sort of people who make good parents. Too many people abuse drugs even when they are pregnant, they then give birth and it takes years for the state to be able to take their kids away from them after they are abused.
I am all for encouraging people to have implants for birth control, I don’t want more kids put in “the system”
I don’t think being a parent is a “right”</p>
<p>
Exactly! I’m all in favor of sex education, and I agree that birth control is WAAAAY preferable to abortion. The only thing is, with all the emphasis on mechanics and prevention, little attention seems to be paid to the emotional and spiritual consequences of sex for young people. I think that once the physical stuff takes hold, the talking and sharing of ideas often ends. Casual sex hurts everyone, in my opinion, even if it doesn’t result in STDs or pregnancy. So in this sense, I believe in talking about abstinence and celibacy, but more in terms of protecting one’s emotional well-being as opposed to just avoiding the consequences of sex.</p>
<p>Aries, my apologies…I misread your #33, reading it too quickly without checking the context. We were and are in agreement.</p>
<p>Poetsheart, and in return I’ll agree with you about the need for discussions & thought about the emotional, moral, and spirtual impact of sex. But: whose job is this? Imo, it’s another in the long litany of items that many parents are abdicating their responsibilities on. It is not the job of the schools nor of the state. Being a parent is hard work and too many people become parents without realizing or accepting that fact. But there can be many different answers to the emotional/moral/spiritual questions and I am extremely loathe, to the point of unalterable opposition, of having the state impose a one-size-fits-all solution based on the sectarian views of one group of the population. The bigger underlying question is, imo, how do we get people to start taking parenting seriously? It’s difficult because so many become parents after not having good role models of parenting themselves. Without meaning to boast, for I’m certainly far from a perfect parent, but I <em>am</em> a thoughtful parent…I myself was brought up alternately in actively atrocious and totally clueless environments until I stumbled into informal foster parents when I was 17. I suppose a lot of the care I’ve taken in being a parent is an active reaction against what I experienced as a child and sometimes, while uncertain of direction, definition by exclusion was a useful tool in choosing options.
Somehow, though, that doesn’t seem good enough as a general prescription: “don’t do what was done to you.”</p>
<p>SJMom, while it’s not a choice that I endorse, I don’t believe that casual sex hurts everyone. And I think that being too tightly wound about sex is just as bad as treating it as an alternative to going bowling.</p>
<p>It should be okay to have sex. It should also be okay not to have sex.
People making either choice should respect the choice of others. But if one chooses to have sex, then one has social and emotional responsiblities, both for one’s self and for the other individual(s); sex is not merely an exercise in self gratification. <peers at=“” first=“” draft…thinks=“” it’s=“” sufficient=“” for=“” now=“”></peers></p>
<p>Let me amend my statement – I think that casual sex hurts almost all females. The risks to future fertility, the emotional investment, and the diminished self esteem when rejected are just hurtful.</p>
<p>
Allow me to chime in with my agreement as well. </p>
<p>IMO, the best birth control is the desire to take care of one’s body and psyche. The rest will come from there. </p>
<p>I’ll all in favour of birth control: have stated in other threads that, even for the “no sex outside of marriage” crowd, birth control is a way of life, unless you want to choose between abstinence and a dozen children. Given that almost everyone will use birth control sometime (and women will use the Pill for unrelated medical issues), I think it is vitally important to have access to it and education about it. There is no reason, however, that sex ed has to be taught under the assumption that everyone will be promiscuous at some point during his/her life. </p>
<p>Insurance companies who pay for Viagra but not the Pill top my list of things to be angry about - while I understand the historical-accident reasoning, I think it’s pathetic. (Basically, a health insurance provider can negotiate for discounts by providing all drugs that a particular company produces to its customers. Viagra got “bundled” in with others.) The Pill for men - I believe it’s in clinical trials - will quickly bring an end to this nonsense, however.</p>
<p>Cato said:
Really? Still confused. Please explain. What constitutes life? If it is so very clear, why no explanation?</p>
<p>Here’s yet another way to look at abortion – as yet one more way to abuse women. Why is it that a woman with an unexpected pregnancy should be faced with either an invasive surgical procedure or the prospect of giving up her job and/or education to have this child, since many of these girls are college students. How about if we put some of the effort we put into defending a woman’s choice with providing her with a REAL choice – the opportunity to bear a child, and still maintain her life in a sustainable way. I’m not talking about pregnancy resulting from rape – I don’t believe that’s the primary reason for abortions in this country. It’s about the lack of support we provide to pregnant women. For an interesting perspective, read this:
<a href=“http://www.incommunion.org/articles/older-issues/the-bitter-price-of-choice[/url]”>http://www.incommunion.org/articles/older-issues/the-bitter-price-of-choice</a>
Just another point of view.</p>
<p>
well, I’m all for increasing support for women and children. But I think you’re overstating the medical magnitude of a first trimester surgical abortion. It’s about the same magnitude as an endometrial biopsy or a cone biopsy of the cervix, both of which are common office procedures. There’s some discomfort with the injection of local anesthetic, followed by about 5 minutes of cramping, and that’s it. Women get up 5 minutes later, and go home 30 minutes after that. Having a baby, or even having any of the common cosmetic surgeries are much bigger events than a 1st trimester surgical abortion in terms of risk, discomfort, and recovery time. A medical abortion (RU-486), available for the first 7 weeks after the last menstrual period, is even less invasive. It’s like having a very heavy period. Not to minimize the experience for the patient having an abortion, but it’s really pretty minor as medical procedures go. It’s a lot quicker and requires about the same anesthetic as root canal, for instance. It would take quite a lot of money to convince a significant number of women who now choose early abortion to have and raise a child instead. Preventing pregnancy with fact based sex ed and contraceptive services is much more likley to be effective in reducing the abortion rate. That’s the approach in Western Europe. They have much fewer abortions and teen births than we do, because they have much fewer unplanned pregnancies.</p>
<p>Approximately 10-20% of all clinically recognized pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion </p>
<p>That does not include the # of spontaneous abortions that occur when the woman does not know she is pregnant</p>
<p>And that is a conservative number</p>
<p>just the facts, ma’am</p>
<p>“Really? Still confused. Please explain. What constitutes life? If it is so very clear, why no explanation?”</p>
<p>Life - Cells with their own DNA that can grow and metabolize.</p>
<p>life is easy to define, human life is hard because it is a value judgement. Doctors decide every day when something or someone is dead so they must be able to tell when it is alive huh?</p>