Abortion

[Chupperson Weird]

"Just have to be done"? Really? You actually think this?
P.S. War/armies/shooting people doesn't have to be done either. The reason for the majority of USA fighting is that it just likes to stick its nose where it doesn't belong.

[CrzyFlmngMnkyHead]

Pro-choice. If my mother were to have another child, she would die during labor and have a stillborn baby. People like my mother need the right to have an abortion.

[MaxVance]

The other 99% wouldn't have been necessary if they had used a condom or just not had sex at all (and if someone is so adverse to the idea of children that they would rather kill than go through 9 months of discomfort and then put the child up for adoption, maybe it would be a good idea to avoid engaging in the activity that produces children).

No form of birth control is 100% effective. I do agree with you about not having sex if you aren't willing to risk preganacy, though.

[The Chef]

See, had I known that little factoid, chances are I wouldn't have said what I said. I admit defeat this time. Still can't say I'm taking any specific side of the argument, thought I will say that I wonder if there's  a better way to prevent unwanted pregnancies so the government won't have to worry about the whole abortion issue in the first place.

[Chupperson Weird]

"A better way" ...

[CrossEyed7]

True; other than abstinence, nothing is 100% effective, but there are several methods that are over 99% effective on average according to Wikipedia. I imagine, half-jokingly, that combining some of them could get you close enough to 100% that if you still manage to get pregnant, God's probably trying to tell you something (either "You should have kids" or "Do you two ever do anything else?").

[BP]

Or possibly "Mary v2.0."

[Koopaslaya]

Pro-choice. If my mother were to have another child, she would die during labor and have a stillborn baby. People like my mother need the right to have an abortion.

No offense to you or your mother, but I think the solution to this problem does not lie in abortion, but what happens (or does not) before it even comes to the point of a pregnancy. Simply because she has some complications does not give her the right to do that.

[Insane Steve]

The other 99% wouldn't have been necessary if they had used a condom or just not had sex at all

The former may be impossible soon (those fervently against abortion will be most likely to found/shop at these stores. Note than in trailer trash Indiana and other rural areas, these stores may be the ONLY option for people), and the latter will never happen thanks to human nature.

And yes, a "murder" today may not have been one 30 years ago. Science changes. Hopefully societial moral codes change too, but that seems about as likely as my head actually exploding when I hit "Post".

[Lizard Dude]

I support abortion. Earth is already massively overpopulated by humans and only getting exponentially worse. We do not need more babies, especially ones the mother doesn't even want.

[CrossEyed7]

"It has been estimated by Paul Ehrlich and others that human beings actually occupy no more than 1-3% of the earth's land surface. If you allotted 1250 square feet to each person, all the people in the world would fit into the state of Texas. Try the math yourself: 7,438,152,268,800 square feet in Texas, divided by the world population of 5,860,000,000, equals 1269 square feet per person. The population density of this giant city would be about 21,000 -- somewhat more than San Francisco and less than the Bronx."
- Source (you might have to select the text to see it)

Furthermore, in several major countries, including Japan, Russia, and most of Europe, population growth is already negative. Besides, if the mother didn't want a child, why did she have sex? (discounting the <1% from rape or incest) If the fetus is a person, abstinence is a small price to pay to avoid committing murder. (Which is why I reemphasize that no pro-choice argument works if the fetus is a person, so that's what should be debated)

[Koopaslaya]

I'm really glad to see that we have some people here who go beyond the merely pragmatic and see the invaluable dignity of the human person. Thank you, CrossEyed07.

[Luigison]

Scientifically speaking I know that life begins at conception, but that a mass of a few cells is not sentient. 

I was getting at the person concept with the second part of that sentence.  To me being sentient is essential to being a person, not merely being able live outside the mother's body with or without medical support.  Also, when can it feel pain? 

[Insane Steve]

Also, one trend I see with a lot of "pro-life" people is that life is only worth saving before birth. Once you're born, you have less value than a faetus. What, some guy raped you, and the pregnancy got complicated to the point where having the baby will likely kill you? Too bad. That's what you get for being female. You probably deserved it.

Now, no one on these forums is this extreme, not even close. Living in Indiana, though, I've heard stuff like that more times (read, more than zero) than I'd like to admit. I see bumper stickers that say things like "abortion stops a beating heart" which are stupid; if you haven't aborted the faetus by the time the heart forms you DON'T WANT an abortion for whatever reason. I've read things about "fake" abortion clinics which are fronts for religious groups to beat (on rare occasions, literally) into your head that abortion is murder. The "holier than thou" stance that a lot of the more outspoken pro-lifers take is hypocritical trash.

Also, the feasibility of 7 billion people living in Texas is essentially zero.

I also believe that humans do not inherently have dignity. Then again, I'm a hyper-logical person and empathy has practically zero weight in the decisions I make, so whatever.

[Nintendoobsessed]

Pro-Choice, although I only feel for girls who are raped. Others, such as horny campus girls, move me little.