Abortion: is it murder?

Dont get me wrong I totally agree that woman face a very difficult and rigorous yet rewarding task in having a child.....but the man doesnt? After the actual action of birth is complete there is nothing that states the woman has to do most of the work....maybe that is how you view how things should be but I personally know single fathers that have been single fathers very early on in the childs life. The pregnancy is a result of two people but the abortion can be the result of one? Far too many of us men accept the fact that the woman should do more in the ascpect of taking care of the child.

Originally posted by Maju Originally posted by Heraclius  Accidents happen, but does that justify abortion? I dont think it can, that accident comes with added responsibility whether you like it or not life has been created, it cant be justifiable to discard it based on an accident. Yes, there is an added responsability: to abort or to have it. The day-after pill actually simplifies the matter a lot, because it is an intermdiate step that you can take without having to go through the surgical procedure. Sadly it's not freely avalaible in all countries as it is considered an abortive. Look Heraclius: people have to take many decissions and to assume many responsabilities through life but if there's a choice let's keep it open so people is not trapped in some moralistic black-hole for 20 or 30 years. If you break your leg, you have to pass though it but if you can get it cured, you will do, won't you? Same with sex accidents.

 Look I don't want to fall into the trap most pro-life supporters fall into by getting ontop of their moral high horse and shouting all the odds at everybody. There's enough religious cranks out there already who can do that for me.

 Theres a lot of difference between abortion and breaking ones leg and you know it.

 I don't think im being unreasonable by saying adoption is far more preferable than abortion, many people on here have readily admitted abortion is sad or not the best option or unfortunate, nobody seems overly joyful about the fact babies are aborted and rightfully so. Almost any alternative is surely better than abortion, considering how good the lives of plenty of people who have been through the adoption process these days are, I think everybody atleast deserves the right to exist and the chance to live their lives. It wont be easy for anybody, but I wouldnt deny somebody the chance to live.

Edited by Heraclius

Originally posted by Heraclius  Look I don't want to fall into the trap most pro-life supporters fall into by getting ontop of their moral high horse and shouting all the odds at everybody. There's enough religious cranks out there already who can do that for me.  Theres a lot of difference between abortion and breaking ones leg and you know it.  I don't think im being unreasonable by saying adoption is far more preferable than abortion, many people on here have readily admitted abortion is sad or not the best option or unfortunate, nobody seems overly joyful about the fact babies are aborted and rightfully so. Almost any alternative is surely better than abortion, considering how good the lives of plenty of people who have been through the adoption process these days are, I think everybody atleast deserves the right to exist and the chance to live their lives. It wont be easy for anybody, but I wouldnt deny somebody the chance to live.

I totally agree with you on this matter Heraclius. Abortion should not be something like a contracepive method. People tend to regard only the couple's or the woman's hardships in providing for the child and disregard the actual child's right to live in the first place!

 Maju.

 Being with your natural mother/father doesnt mean your life will be necessarily any better anyway, if for example a baby is adopted then the family it grows up with is the only family he/she has ever known, the fact they are not blood related isnt of importance. Assuming the childs adoptive parents are good and loving then there is no reason why the child wont grow and develop aswell under them as it would its natural mother and father.

 Adoption is infinitely more preferable than abortion, in one you are alive in the other your not, surely life is preferable to death before birth here? I dare say people who have been adopted into loving families are far happier that their natural mother chose to give them up for adoption than abort them.

 Of course you dont care whether or not you were aborted you dont exist how can you, but that doesnt mean people dont deserve the right to exist in the first place.

 I agree with much of what you have said especially number 3, I understand what a highly unattractive prospect giving up ones career to care for a child you never pon having lanned in the first place must be. I think abortion should be discouraged as much as possible, far to often it seems women are getting pregnant (if they didnt plan for this child/want it) and the first thing that comes to their head is abortion.

 There are other options like adoption, but I think more options should be opened, like assurances that her career need not be over so the sacrifices she is making are not as large. Parenthood itself should be rewarding anyway and the knowledge that life has not ended simply because she is pregnant may convince many more women that abortion isnt the only avenue here. Abortion is becoming it seems far to often the first and only option people are considering, I believe that is wrong, its nice to say its a last last resort but I dont believe most people see it that way anymore. I may well be wrong.

You have not reflected on how the baby learns to identify his mother (the most important thing to him/her, even when in the uterus) by the heartbeats and smell. You do not realize how important is for a baby to stay with his/her mother just after birth, so he/she knows that everything is ok: the same heartbeats, the same smell, the same warmth that have kept him safe in the formation process. You do not realize how important is natural lactancy both nutritionally and emotionally. You do not realize how important is for the baby (and the mother) the post-brith moment of imprinting.

Hospital births have created a whole generation or two of totally alienated people with many emotional lacks, due to the (formerly) disregard for the most essential and "magical" importance of post birth emotions. Babies have been kept hours and hours isolated from anything known, while mothers have been forced to give birth in unnatural positions. This is being reconsidered but, with medicalization of birth, we have lost much of what is most important in it. I'm almost positive that the increase of some mental and physical illnesses are due largely to this emotional alienation in the birth process caused by medicalization.

Well, what I mean is that no matter how loving foster parents are, they can't ever replace fully the natural ones, the ones that the baby has known already in the formation process, specially the mother. There can be no imprinting between a foster mother and her adopted baby (though deprivation of natural imprinting also makes many natural mothers to artificially become foster mothers: caring aliens but aliens after all for the animal mind that rules basic emotions). In any case, separation of the newborn from the mother should be avoided in any case and only desperate cases should be cause of adoption.

Also I want to say, that I'm for births but provided that women's rights and special needs are being taken care of. You just can condemn the mothers to have a miserable existence and then tell them not to abort. You must provide them for a satisfactory enviroment where they can raise any children with dignity and freedom. I think that making humble mothers to become the eggs of affluent ones is no solution to anything. I prefer almost any other option.

Originally posted by Infidel I think you're highly dramatizing things Maju. Foster parents can perfectly replace the natural ones, sometimes even better.

Not true: foster parents, specially the mother can only play that role. a foster mother can't ever be the same as the biological one. Of course, there are special circumstances but in general adoption is not any good solution: there is only one mother.

I think that anti-abortists are the ones that are dramatizing quite a lot on the importance of a bunch of amorphous cells. If you take life so seriously, you should actually do it as life is not on any abstract concepts on what is human life and what is not. You are mostly driven by ideological slogans that state arbitrarily that a soul is divinely injected in the moment of conception. Yet I have my reasons to believe that (spritually) is not existent before birth and (psychologically) is not fully human before 10 months of age.

I've read a lot on the importance of natural child-bearing and motherhood. I won't give you any references because all them are in Spanish (if you understand Spanish are still interested, ask again). I'm sure there's stuff like that in english but I have no idea where.

I say that not just foster-mothers can't be imprinted and hardly can take care of breast feeding but also that natural mothers that are kept separated from their children after birth are deprived of that essential moment and their later relation with their children won't always be the same. In some deep areas of our minds, the baby has died. And while adults can put up for it via reason, babies can't and for them mum has vanished, he/she has been somehow in the verge of death (no mother = no life) and has been adopted many hours later by another mother that he/she won't recognize as the same one he was related with before birth (because babies can't use reasoning for that, it's all instinct by the moment).

Luckily, Western hospitals are realizing this problem (that is also behind post-partum depressions) and are trying to avoid babies being separated from their mothers after birth. But this is a very recent developement and I'm unsure about its extent. I can only say for sure that this has happened in Basque public health care in the late 90s, after sustained campaigning and discussion.

In any case, for decades, medicalization of birth has caused this natural essential process of imprinting not to happen in most cases, creating probably a very harsh feeling of lack of roots among several generations. I wouldn't discard that the increase of such disorders as schizophrenia, anxiety, hyperactivity, depression or asthma are partly related to this basic error about child bearing. An emotionally traumatized baby is likely to have more problems of all sorts.

it is definately murder!

it reminds me of pre-islamic arabs who use to bury there new born children alive, just becouse the baby was born female. Abortian is no different, if anything its worse!

Originally posted by Maju Originally posted by Infidel I think you're highly dramatizing things Maju. Foster parents can perfectly replace the natural ones, sometimes even better. Not true: foster parents, specially the mother can only play that role. a foster mother can't ever be the same as the biological one. Of course, there are special circumstances but in general adoption is not any good solution: there is only one mother. I think that anti-abortists are the ones that are dramatizing quite a lot on the importance of a bunch of amorphous cells. If you take life so seriously, you should actually do it as life is not on any abstract concepts on what is human life and what is not. You are mostly driven by ideological slogans that state arbitrarily that a soul is divinely injected in the moment of conception. Yet I have my reasons to believe that (spritually) is not existent before birth and (psychologically) is not fully human before 10 months of age.

I agree with most of what Maju has said. I have two kids, and I can see how natural mothers matter. I am the father of these children, and until my daughter was about two, she just preferred to be with her mother whenever she was sick or sad. The same goes for my two-month-old son: my wife can sooth him just by holding him. I have never been able to do that.

Taking children away from their mothers is unnatural and abhorrent. Promoting the idea that women should give their new borns to total strangers, as an alternative to abortion, is cruel and anti-family.

It also has a strong classist component to this. Banning abortion and forcing women to give their children up to strangers is forcing the poor to create babbies for the rich. This is exploitative to the biggest degree.

If anti-abortionists are serious about women not getting abortions, then create a fund to support the mothers with their future child. Refusal to do so just show the hypocresy of the movement.

Originally posted by hugoestr Taking children away from their mothers is unnatural and abhorrent. Promoting the idea that women should give their new borns to total strangers, as an alternative to abortion, is cruel and anti-family.

Many adopted people wouldn't say so, I reckon.

It also has a strong classist component to this. Banning abortion and forcing women to give their children up to strangers is forcing the poor to create babbies for the rich. This is exploitative to the biggest degree.

Too much of a revolucionario leftish argument, wouldn't you say?