This is just a random thought as I am watching what is happening in TX...is there anything you could learn/experience that could conceivably change your position on the legality of abortion? I ask because I just don't see people changing their mind much, if at all, on this issue and no amount of talking or research or introspection really makes a difference, IMO.
This is a question for pro-choicers as well as the 3 pro-lifers on this board that might be interested in sharing (lol).
Post by Miss Phryne Fisher on Jul 13, 2013 17:48:45 GMT -5
Absolutely not. RoxyTandme's story even solidified to me that abortion should be legal to 24 weeks. (She is the one on TB who had a baby with amniotic banding syndrome. Basically the baby was being cut in half in utero. There was no way she was going to live, and I believe it was the only merciful thing to do. If pro-lifers want to say the baby can feel pain...well how about when the baby is being cut in half and will die an agonizing death before term? Should that torture be prolonged?)
"Not gonna lie; I kind of keep expecting you to post one day that you threw down on someone who clearly had no idea that today was NOT THEIR DAY." ~dontcallmeshirley
Post by redheadbaker on Jul 13, 2013 18:15:18 GMT -5
No, nothing. Between my experience of getting pregnant unexpectedly with DS (which worked well for me, but I'm not naive enough to think the same will happen for everyone), and losing my baby last month to pPROM, it just made me more firm in my stance.
No. I pretty much solidified my stance in 5th grade. I was told once that being pregnant and having a child would change my ideas. It didn't. I was told that if I had trouble ttc I would change my tune. It didn't. At the end of the day I'm influenced by numbers, facts, and science.
Post by MixedBerryJam on Jul 13, 2013 18:39:30 GMT -5
I cannot imagine a situation that would make me change my stance, and my stance goes so far as to support no abortion restrictions whatsoever, including late-term abortion being legal and safe.
Post by RoxMonster on Jul 13, 2013 18:46:50 GMT -5
Actually I have already changed my stance.
I grew up Catholic, attending Catholic school my entire life and everyone I knew was staunchly anti-abortion and that's what was preached in our HS health and religion courses. I even remember in freshman religion class having a discussion about the Church's stance on abortion. As a naive 15 year old, I went along with what the Church believed and considered myself anti-abortion.
After HS I went away to (non-Catholic, non-religious) college, did a lot of thinking about my religious beliefs, among other beliefs, experienced things, grew up, etc. and am now strongly pro-choice and have been for awhile. But no, nothing would ever make me change my mind and turn anti-abortion again.
Getting pregnant made me alter my thinking on what I might do in a situation. It has not altered my decision on what I think the laws should be.
This is how I feel. My personal feelings about the morality of abortion have changed in the anti-abortion direction but my feelings on the legal issues have actually changed in the pro-choice direction.
For me, the personhood issue - the personhood of the woman - trumps everything.
No. I pretty much solidified my stance in 5th grade. I was told once that being pregnant and having a child would change my ideas. It didn't. I was told that if I had trouble ttc I would change my tune. It didn't. At the end of the day I'm influenced by numbers, facts, and science.
My experience was similar to RoxMonster. Raised Catholic, attended a fundie Christian school. I was taught gay people were sinning evildoers. Women who had abortions were whores.
Then I went to college. And met women who were sexually active, and weren't sluts. And gay people who were normal. And women who either had abortions or considered having abortions and weren't whores.
Who knew?!!
And after going through pregnancy and becoming a parent, I could never force a woman to go through an unwanted pregnancy. Nope, nope, nope.
Absolutely not. RoxyTandme's story even solidified to me that abortion should be legal to 24 weeks. (She is the one on TB who had a baby with amniotic banding syndrome. Basically the baby was being cut in half in utero. There was no way she was going to live, and I believe it was the only merciful thing to do. If pro-lifers want to say the baby can feel pain...well how about when the baby is being cut in half and will die an agonizing death before term? Should that torture be prolonged?)
This is the only type of situation that gives me pause, but even then, actually killing the baby is too much for me. I can maybe get on board with an induction with basically no chance of survival in cases where the baby is basically being tortured, not for just anything.
If there were actual scientific evidence that abortion was consistently harmful (emotional or physically) far beyond what is entailed with childbirth and adoption. And I mean far more dangerous (I think people should have rights to slight more dangerous medical procedures for a benefit--say risk life to save a limb over a sure-thing amputation.)
No. I pretty much solidified my stance in 5th grade. I was told once that being pregnant and having a child would change my ideas. It didn't. I was told that if I had trouble ttc I would change my tune. It didn't. At the end of the day I'm influenced by numbers, facts, and science.
Many people become more pro-choice being pregnant. And you know, that 50% of women having abortions who are already mothers.
I'll leave open the possibility of some day agreeing to compromise on the legality of some abortions, but WRT the morality I doubt I will ever change my mind.
My stance has changed some. I was your run of the mill pro-choicers who still was unsure about a lot (like the 20 week thing and didn't know many stats on who gets the majority of abortions). I was judgemental about moms who couldn't take "just one more."
But now I'm much more clearly a true pro-choicer as I understand the law's place as it relates the human body and medical world, personhood, etc. I pretty much lost all of my judgement on it.
Going through pregnancy actually put me more firmly in the pro-choice "camp" than I had been before.
This.
For me it's all about choice. So what I personally would choose to do should have no bearing on what another woman chooses to do. That's why the whole " you'll feel differently after having a kid" carries little weight with me. 1) it made me more pro choice. But 2) not every woman will look at it differently. And that's okay.
I look at abortions wherein the baby's medical condition is either incompatible with life outside the womb OR would result in a miserable/painful life no matter how long or short as mercy killing/euthanasia and I totally see that as different from abortion. I can't define myself as pro-choice, but I am also a very enthusiastic supporter of euthanasia (inside and outside the womb), so I also can't claim the pro-life label, either.
I've become more and more pro-choice as I've gotten older. I became firmly pro-choice after reading A Case of Need as a teenager, but I didn't have a problem with "partial birth abortion" bans because I'd been led to believe it was basically near full term healthy babies. But the more I read and realized it was ending the suffering of babies who would never lead healthy lives (and would likely die at birth anyway) I realized that was wrong. Where I'm at now is that abortion should be 100% safe and legal with no restrictions on gestational age. Study after study shows women know exactly what they are capable of with regards to parenthood, and taking away that choice is far more immoral in my eyes than terminating a pregnancy.
Post by LoveTrains on Jul 13, 2013 20:12:54 GMT -5
I have only become more pro-choice as I get older. My sister had an issue where her very much wanted son had fetal abnormalities that were incompatible with life. She chose to terminate to save him from pain. I know how tough it was for her and how much she loved her son. She remembers him every year.
I seriously think anyone that would make her carry her baby to term will never have to suffer that kind of awful pain. It was a terrible situation.
I am also like RoxMonster and writergal. I had an upper-middle class WASP upbringing. Stable family, no money problems. Christian upbringing, Christian schools, pro-life rallies, rah-rah.
Then, when I left school and was taking a break from college to try to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I worked in food service. I worked with a gal that was so different than anyone I'd ever known before. Hispanic, didn't finish HS, single, had an 8 year old son. As I got to know her, she shared with me that she'd had an abortion (after she already had her son). You know, that experience really changed me. She was the face of womanhood that I had never known before. I knew how hard she was trying to make it with her and her son. I could not deny how much more difficult her life would have been at that time with another child. And even then (this is 22 years ago), I knew people were not lining up to adopt Hispanic babies. And I realized that I had been following a belief that I had never informed myself about. That is when I became pro-choice.
For personal reasons, I hate this discussion going on of reducing the window where abortions are legal. 20 weeks is not long enough. 24 weeks is barely long enough for most situation. My sister had to avail herself of a termination (of a wanted pregnancy) at 22 weeks due to a condition incompatible with life, of one that it turned out put her life at risk as well. I wish there were no restrictions on gestation.
I have only become more pro-choice as I get older. My sister had an issue where her very much wanted son had fetal abnormalities that were incompatible with life. She chose to terminate to save him from pain. I know how tough it was for her and how much she loved her son. She remembers him every year.
I seriously think anyone that would make her carry her baby to term will never have to suffer that kind of awful pain. It was a terrible situation.
LoveTrains, you were posting right before I did. It looks like we have extremely similar experiences. My sister's was 16 years ago a week ago. Even with having 4 children since then, no one in the family has forgotten him.
I'm pretty anti-abortion for myself with the exceptions of my health or fetal incompatibility with life, but I can't see a world in which I have the right to make that decision for anyone else.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”