'Partial Birth' abortion legislation

How do you feel about it?

I'm frankly shocked at what I'm hearing. I've heard people saying that the 'decision' lies with the mother only and that she should be able to do as she wishes.

I'm in a gray area (to me) in the months that incorporate the first trimester of a pregnancy. I see both sides of the argument in this time frame and tend to think that the law has no business in the womb (but I feel abortion is morally wrong). I wouldn't presume to force my morals on someone else during this time period.

After the three months, though it seems clear to me that it should imperative that the pregnancy go on. If there is a medical necessity (mother in trouble) then those issues should be dealt with individually (yes that allows for abuse). Barring that... three months should be ample time for a woman to decide if she wants a baby or not.

Am I missing something?

Yes. Your own vagina.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again… education is the key. A lot of people don’t even realize what a partial-birth abortion even involves…

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No, Toose, I think you're absolutely right.

One of the things that always bothers me about abortion and the choice to make an abortion is that people always say it's the woman's choice. However, it's not simply the woman's choice--it's the man's choice as well, if he is a figure in the woman's and the baby's life. It's a parent issue, to decide whether or not you can be a parent. So often, though, in situations where abortion becomes an option, the father simply isn't involved, emotionally or otherwise, so by default it becomes the "woman's choice."

However, partial birth abortions are another matter entirely. I'd never really thought about it before, when considering my stance on the issue, but three months (or the period immediately following the discovery of the pregnancy, whenever that occurs) should definitely be enough time to make the decision to have the baby or not. It ain't like picking out a movie at the video store--it's a life-changing decision that's one of the most important anyone can make. And you don't just walk around for months upon months with a baby inside you and then freak out and say, "Oh, I can't handle this. It's abortion time." If you allow the pregnancy to continue into the advanced stages, then you've already made a commitment.

Backing out then... well, I've never been one to cite abortion in and of itself as "murder" (I'm pro-choice, as you can probably tell), but that's about as close as it can come to murder, in my book.

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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."

I have to say this - it's never said enough these days. If you really want to avoid a pregnancy, try ABSTINENCE! I mean, make it into a cool thing or something. Tell everyone that you're practicing abstinence. Work to make it become a normal part of society instead of everything being SEX! SEX! SEX! Don't read my "Like a Virgin" thread and get tempted. In fact, I should make a thread called "STAY A VIRGIN!" There doesn't need to be a sexual revolution right now. You're better off not having sex! TAKE THE MOST IMPORTANT PRECAUTION. ABSTINENCE. ABSTINENCE. ABSTINENCE!

Rape victims who become pregnant: There are two ways of looking at it. I have always felt that a rape victim who becomes pregnant should not have the child. I don't believe that it is fair to the woman in so many ways - especially since she'll be raising the child of someone that cruel, someone she doesn't love (or maybe it's someone she does know, and she thinks she loves him, even though he raped her -- too confusing. See a psychiatrist.) someone who took away her choices.

I don't know. Maybe there are women who are looking for a sperm donor, a man just happens to rape her, she becomes pregnant, she opens a bottle of champagne. OK, let me stop talking about the kooks.

A woman who is raped, but cannot kill human life, may find peace raising the child because she isn't lowering herself to the rapist's level. He rapes, she murders... she feels just as bad. I personally wouldn't understand this emotion (I'm a man, if I was a woman and I became pregnant because of a rape, it is OUT.) But the woman who becomes pregnant because of a rapist could see herself as the better person and play loving, harmonious, embraces innocence, Angel of God, Mother Nature Mother.

Anyway,

The Reverend Sexy Celebrity has spoken

I don't know why we're arguing about male/female stuff when it comes to a woman bringing life into the world. IT IS THE WOMAN'S CHOICE. It's her body. Woman rules nature, not man. Woman brings man into the world. What if a woman has a physical problem/is in pain, cannot do the pregnancy, but her husband makes her, she goes along with it, she dies in childbirth. I WOULD BE A PRETTY PISSED OFF GHOST!

If you're married to a great lady - got a career going, got sexy looks, got it all - and you get her pregnant time after time, and everytime she gets pregnant she checks herself into the abortion clinic because she refuses to have kids - and that makes you ANNNNNGGGGGGRRYYYYY -- divorce the child murdering, cold and frigid psychopath! You either put your money into a soda machine and get a soda, or you put your money into a soda machine that gives you nothing! GO TO ANOTHER MACHINE.

Women are the real providers - men are the payers.

Ugh, this is such a complex and grotesque discussion. I can't even watch the Discovery Channel without being grossed-out by the real surgeries they always show on that channel. However I am a horror movie fan--go figure. But the thought of a 3 month old human fetus being "sucked" out of a womb piece-by-segmented-piece, just makes me want to vomit. Perhaps that is where my disdain for the partial birth abortion lays. For some reason I'm totallty comfortable with a woman's right to choose if that choice is made within the first month, I'm not so comfortable with it, if the child has gestated long enough to form a head, arms, legs, etc.

And another thing: Who can afford such a procedure? Partial birth abortions must be very expensive as opposed to an abortion of the DNC type (scraping and flushing out of the uterus). It is of my opinion that only the lower, poorer classes get the majority abortions, and I'm thinking they know what they want as soon as they find out they're pregnant. Who waits 3, 4 or even 5 months into the pregnancy to decide they want the fetus removed? I say only rich folk because they, or their sugar daddies, can afford it.

And the whole murder thing. I know my mother would have liked to kill me (literally) a few times in my teens, but had she cut me up into little pieces and flushed me down the toilet then, that would have been murder, so what's the difference?

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I have been formatted to fit this screen.

r66-The member who always asks WHY?

You were already past your birthdate. No mother gets to say "I want an abortion!" right after her baby's been born.

Personally, I went through something far worse than abortion right after I was born ---- CIRCUMCISION!

Are you volunteering yours?

The baby is living by the thrid month but it isn't cognitive. I am not saying it is right, but if it is even slightly neccesary I wouldn't mind. Population control needs to be taken into consideration; oh heaven forbid someone irresponsible get pregnant, some may not notice till three months into it- although I'm not sure about that because I know nothing about when morning sickness kicks in and whatnot - and if something is so unaware of its existence it shouldn't be a problem. I don't quite know how I feel about this, but if you are extremely militant about anti-abortion(as no one in this thread seems to be of yet) I hope you don't eat eggs.

Like me... er, what does it involve?

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Mr M Rides Again

MoFo Survivor - r3port3r66 wins!!!!!!

Population control?

Population control needs to be considered BEFORE a pregnancy.... don't you think?

Partial birth abortions sound pretty nasty, and I think a ban would not be such a bad thing; however, doing a little reading, I hear suggestions that banning pba is just the banning, and will eventually lead to a wider ban on all forms of abortion, including prosecution of doctors performing abortions 8 weeks into pregnancy, which sounds pretty extreme, and certainly not something I'd expect of a supposedly free community! I hope wider bans never happen, because it would bring back the days of unqualified surgeons performing illegal operations which quite often led to permanent and sometimes fatal injuries to women.

I think the contention is the time frame. I also think that all of the chicken little sky is falling panic from the left is unfounded. To attempt to write a law that bans all abortion is to commit political suicide and none of these a-holes from either side are willing to do that.

The populous is centrist on average. Abortion is a centrist issue... as half the population will never be happy with any form of resolution.

Seeing as how pro-lifers contend that the fetus may very well be, in fact, human, the "population control" argument is meaningless unless you're willing to defend the killing of fully birthed human beings for the same reasons.


I fail to see the connection, unless we were all to agree that eating chickens is immoral.

I only eat the white of the egg myself.

Oh my god.....thats horrific.

Thats worse than when my mum told me what those little nappies were that women wear sometimes.

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Yoda's right--abortion, at least in our society, is not a form of population control. That would be where contraceptives come into play, ideally. There's also Sexy's abstinence platform. And what a crazy place that is, especially for someone who calls himself Sexy.

The legislators who are trying to stop the ban are mainly using the "if the mother is in danger" argument, but this doesn't work for me, considering that I have found no instances wherein this has been an issue. If anyone has any info, please share it--I'd like to know if there's any evidence in the form of examples to support the argument.