<p>At some level, abortion opponents do not believe that a fetus is a person. If they did, they would be storming abortion clinics to save all of those peoples’ lives. If doctors/clinics were killing 10-year-olds by the thousands or millions every year, would opponents of such killings stand by and simply voice their disapproval?</p>
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<p>The dividing line should be the heartbeat. We already have a system in place that defines the heartbeat as indicator of life. A person’s heart stops, he’s deemed dead. So a fetus develops a heart, a heartbeat, s/he should be considered alive, a person.</p>
<p>Simple solution.</p>
<p>Bay, some of them do.</p>
<p>Many vegetarians feel the same way about animals. But the smarter ones try to work within the system instead of being so radical that they get put in jail. Can’t do too much good for the cause in jail.</p>
<p>must…resist…response…</p>
<p>Why? I’m actually curious as to what your response would be. ;)</p>
<p>Yes, it is now a RICO offense to protest at abortion mills. Lots of bosses don’t like it when their employees have to get bailed out on Monday morning.</p>
<p>and 1/42, how could giving an “unwanted” child a life with some promise be WORSE than DEATH? Makes no sense.</p>
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<p>No, but honoring the right to life of all its citizens IS something that is the responsibility of the govt.</p>
<p>Unborn babies have heartbeats.</p>
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<p>Life isn’t always easy. Ah, such is life.
Here’s the bottom line:</p>
<p>Ask any woman who has given her baby up for adoption if she regrets it - if she wishes she had had an abortion instead. How many do you think will say yes she should’ve aborted the baby to spare herself the pain of giving up the baby?</p>
<p>Ask any couple who has adopted a child if they wish they’d never adopted the child.</p>
<p>Say, what???</p>
<p>That’s like saying a woman should not have a baby because labor is painful. </p>
<p>Ask ANY new mother if the pain was worth it…would she do it all over again to have this child…</p>
<p>You already know the answer to that.</p>
<p>Sorry, but the argument that adoption is ‘sometimes painful’ is exceedingly weak.</p>
<p>I believe with sophisticated ultra-sonography a heartbeat can be detected when the baby is 3 weeks old. Some women don’t even know they are pregnant at that point.</p>
<p>3 weeks? Well, that should pretty much take care of it, then. No need to worry about fertilized eggs or defining life at conception. Just go with the heartbeat.</p>
<p>Heartbeat=person.</p>
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<p>I’ve PMed you the answer to that question, because I don’t particularly want to discuss it publicly.</p>
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<p>Mmhmm, but when did we all decide that that was a good indicator of when life begins? A lack of a heartbeat is an indicator (generally) of when life ends, but when did we all agree that it was the best indicator of when life begins?</p>
<p>On a more technical note, since a child is not a citizen until they are born, what’s your point with the first statement?</p>
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<p>I don’t really know the answer to that question. I know a couple of teenage mothers who say that - having given the baby up for adoption that they wish they had been on top of things and gotten an abortion. Is it a common sentiment? I’m not sure.</p>
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<p>I know at least one who do.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that adoption is worse than abortion in all cases, merely that it comes with its own set of very real downsides and traumas, which are routinely ignored in the abortion debate.</p>
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<p>Maybe. Maybe not. For lots of people for whom the process was very painful, your flippant dismissal would come across as willfully ignorant.</p>
<p>Having seen lots of ultrasounds done in early pregnancy, it is very clear to me that the fetuses are alive and swimming. I could never justify killing a fetus anymore than I could justify killing a fullterm baby. </p>
<p>Birth control services are widely available and those of us who work closely with fertile females are amazed at how often birth control and condoms are refused by these women for totally irrational reasons. </p>
<p>Many of them want to get pregnant as early as 15 for secondary reasons, and a lot of women are just thoughtless and irresponsible and would rather have higher risk abortions than use lower risk birth control.</p>
<p>Everyone has a story about a friend who was the 1% who became pregnant on birth control, but the reality is that there are many safe and effective methods.</p>
<p>Birth control is safer and less traumatic physically and emotionally than abortion, and it avoids killing a fetus. You can sugarcoat abortion all you want, but a living being is killed. </p>
<p>Society can figure out better ways to deal with fertility than letting things go and then destroying what was created.</p>
<p>A lack of a heartbeat is an indicator (generally) of when life ends</p>
<p>YOu can have a heart beat but have basically no brain activity.
A heartbeat can be simulated by a machine- a brain wave cannot be.
I vote for the brain wave.</p>
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<p>1of42, respectfully, your arguments aren’t as strong as they usually are. ;)</p>
<p>Apply some simple logic here.</p>
<p>Heartbeat ends = life ends.</p>
<p>Therefore, heartbeat = indicator of life.</p>
<p>Therefore, heartbeat begins = life begins.</p>
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<p>When a heart stops, the person is considered dead.</p>
<p>If a heart is being artificially stimulated by a machine, that is a different situation and completely irrelevant because the fetus is not hooked up to a heart machine when the heartbeat starts, so obviously it started on its own.</p>
<p>Case in point: A person is killed by gunshot wounds. The cops arrive on the scene and discover no heartbeat. The person is declared dead. They don’t check for brainwaves; since there is no heartbeat it is not necessary.</p>
<p>Conversely, if there is a heartbeat, there is no reason to check for brainwaves because the primary (and current legal) standard for life is already present.</p>
<p>Again, simple logic.</p>
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<p>swatparent: excellent post #51. The tired old arguments about abortion being necessary to stop the poor welfare teens from having babies falls flat on its face when one realizes that so many of these poor teens WANT to have babies! I’ve read articles about the reasons they give - among the most common is ‘so I’ll have someone who will love me.’</p>
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<p>OK, so are you saying we should allow women to kill their babies because they are too selfish to give the child a chance at a good life? Sorry if this sounds judgmental, but this just sounds selfish to me. For someone who ALREADY gave up her child, and knows this child has now been adopted by parents who WANT him/her, to say she wishes she had killed it instead?</p>
<p>And that’s supposed to be justification??</p>
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<p>This couple admitted that they REGRETTED adopting their child?? Wow, I sure feel sorry for that kid. I wonder if they plan to tell the kid they regretted adopting him. That kid’s gonna have some issues! First rejected by his biological parents and then rejected again by his adoptive parents.</p>
<p>Do you also know of a couple who had a biological child and admitted to regretting it?</p>
<p>Hey, we just cannot make up for every single possible jerk on the planet. </p>
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<p>LIFE has its own set of very real downsides and traumas. That’s a given. Is it really necessary to spell that out?</p>
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<p>Legally, leal, your perspective here is incorrect. In America, personhood is only conferred upon someone who has detectable brain activity, and the definition of death is not when the heart stops, but when brain activity is no longer detectable (and the lack of brain activity is not transient) OR when the heart stops.</p>
<p>Clearly we cannot use the heartbeat as the start of life. Electrical activity in the brain is more accurate, but I think brain activity has to meet a certain level of activity before it can be legitimately considered life. I suspect there is disorganized electrical activity in the brain of a fetus for some time before the brain activity actually begins directing the rest of the fetus. Don’t quote me on that, since I’m not an expert in this field, but it’s the feeling I have.</p>
<p>That said, my main point is that using the heartbeat is outdated and inaccurate.</p>
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<p>Incorrect. According to the Uniform Definition of Death Act:</p>
<p>"§ 1. [Determination of Death]. An individual who has sustained either (1)
irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible
cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. </p>
<p>A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical
standards."</p>
<p>Therefore, if you have no heartbeat or respiration and that condition is irreversible, you are dead regardless of brain activity, and if you have no brain activity, you are dead regardless of heartbeat. The two work in concert. Obviously it’s a bit harder for the cop to check for brain waves, but then again the cops don’t make the declaration of death, either.</p>
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<p>Of course it’s selfish. But it’s reality. Once a woman sees the baby, she takes actions that may not be in the best interest of either her or the child. Arguments about whether abortion amounts to “[killing] their babies” aside, the powerful maternal instincts fostered by millennia of evolutionary pressures make it very tough for women to give up their babies for adoption, even if up until the moment of birth they wouldn’t think of doing anything else.</p>
<p>And leal, with all due respect, you need to stop judging people. The emotional trauma of giving a child up for adoption can be extraordinarily difficult; that associated with abortion often less so. Your feelings about abortion being murder aside, I find it a little rich for you to sit here and judge others for the difficulties they have had - unless of course you’re speaking from experience, which I very much doubt.</p>
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<p>The couple (close family friends) waited several years hoping very much to get a kid; they were an older couple (and not financially able to do the adopt-from-China type thing). Finally an mother who was putting her baby up for adoption came up, and everything seemed to be working out.</p>
<p>Mother gave birth, they got the child, and on the 29th of 30 days in which the mother could conceivably ask for the child back, the mother changed her mind.</p>
<p>Almost a month of getting attached to the baby - yes, with the knowledge that it wasn’t necessarily a sure thing, but still - all down the tubes. The adoptive parents were both incredibly sad, depressed, frustrated, etc. That was the end of adoption for them. And they wish they had never gone into it - all it got them was sadness.</p>
<p>Still think they’re jerks?</p>
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<p>Apparently it is, given that every time this debate comes up someone mentions adoption as some kind of ideal process in which a great set of adoptive parents get a great child from a great birth mother and it all works smoothly and easily. The reality is nowhere that tidy, and that fact is routinely ignored.</p>
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<p>If this is the only reason abortion opponents stand by and do nothing while 1.2 million “people” are murdered every year, then they are cowards.</p>
<p>The adoption process in this country is messed up.
I feel it is totally seperate from abortion as a back up method of birth control however.
Re abortion- I am against the government deciding what sort of medical care & legal procedures that licensed doctors prescribe for their patients.
( Includes pharmacists who opt of of dispensing legal medications for customers- You want to decide instead of the physician what prescription to write? Get a M.D.)</p>
<p>But just on my * street<a href=“&%20half%20the%20homes,%20residents%20are%20not%20parenting%20age”>/i</a>
One family- had several foster kids who were under the age of 10, when they started caring for them, they were under the age of 5. These kids were shuttled around between their mother, and the state- as well as the foster parents. The foster parents provided the most stable home, although an aunt did move to the area, so that she could have more contact with the kids.</p>
<p>Eventually the kids stayed with the foster parents, and they were in the lenghty process of adopting them, when they moved to a more suburban area with plans to have many adoptive/foster kids.</p>
<p>So that process while less than optimal- was on the upward path- still would have been much better for the kids mother, to not to have had to go in and out of rehab and jail & not to have exposed them to abusive boyfriends etc. but hey- better that , than to have never been born right?</p>
<p>The other couple on our block- adopted a baby girl, and had her for a few months, until her temprament propeled them to give her back.
( many children- are born to addicted mothers or simply mothers with high levels of stress, low levels of health care- that can impact the child)</p>
<p>They did go on to adopt twin boys and to have their own son, ( they later divorced) but I still wonder about that little girl.</p>
<p>I also know a woman who is the director of an agency which provides privately funded services for foster children. She & her partner has adopted two children from foster care. These kids are pretty high needs, as many of them are. The parents are professionals in the social service system & they are overstretched.
Imagine what people who didn’t plan to have kids & aren’t prepared to raise them are able to do. not much.</p>
<p>If we as a society-
are going to discourage unmarried girls and women from using birth control & shy away from accurate sex education in schools, realizing that birth control is not 100% ( & many on these boards have testified to that), but continue to make back up birth control difficult if not impossible to procure- then we have to pour more financial and practical support into the children that will result from these unplanned pregnancies.</p>
<p>When financial , emotional, & physical support is not there, on the parents end- to take care of these children till they are 18 at least, then it falls on the backs of the society who pressured them to have the kids in the first place.</p>
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<p>I was referring to couples who successfully adopted a child, in which case most parents would not send back the child just because of difficulties. You cited a different sort of scenario in which their sadness came from the UNsuccessful adoption. Different situation.</p>
<p>Re brain waves vs heartbeat: Whatever. I’m not disputing which it should be. Whichever is the current legal definition of life should be applied.</p>
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<p>Abortion is not exactly tidy either. And those strong maternal instincts you mentioned have to be denied (by not calling it a ‘baby’ …by not seeing a sonagram…by dehumanizing it…etc.) in order to do it.</p>
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<p>I’m not judging women who have abortions. I’m judging abortion itself.</p>
<p>If you were to recall my previous posts, you’d know that I have always been an advocate for being supportive of the WOMEN who are often coerced into abortion by men, parents, career, or finances. And I have said many times that many ‘pro-life’ people are too harsh in their judgment of these women when they call them ‘murderers’ etc.</p>
<p>I have many close friends who’ve had abortions. I know firsthand how heartwrenching their decisions were. It’s a myth that abortion is safe and easy. That is one of the main reasons I am now more of an advocate for educating women about the negative aspects of abortion so that, if they do choose abortion, at least they go into it with their eyes open.</p>
<p>If you think I am judgmental because I believe abortion is wrong, then would you also think someone resisting the Holocaust was judgmental in thinking the Nazi’s were wrong?</p>
<p>SOME things, that are inherently wrong because they harm others, SHOULD be judged. Else, how do we ever champion the oppressed?</p>
<p>Babies with brain waves and heartbeats destroyed for no reason other than selfishness (which you admitted)…that is something that SHOULD be judged.</p>
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<p>Only religious extremists are trying to discourage birth control and sex education. Rational pro-life people realize that sex education and easy access to contraception are integral to reducing abortions.</p>
<p>first calling them abortion mills is not fair- there is a LOT of other care going on at clinics</p>
<p>second, I have had an abortion and I never regretted it for one minute…many women have abortions and we move on</p>
<p>you can’t go on regretting eacch and ever CHOICE you have made in life</p>
<p>and for those that talk about “living being” there are lots of “living things” that we kill every day that have the “potentional” for life</p>
<p>and what I find so ironic is that many who are anti choice are also anti birth control- even for married couples</p>
<p>don’t want no abortions, then don’t stop birth control, but fund it, support it, and FORCE pharmacies that won’t provide it for their own “moral” reasons, to provide it</p>