[Ghostavo]

I prefer calling it surprise sex.

[Flipside]

I'm glad abortion exists, else I'd have spent several years watching a severely disabled child being killed by their own body.

As for abortion, if you think you are going to stop young people from having sex by banning contraceptives and abortion then you are, I'm afraid, seriously out of touch, all you will end up with is a vast and sharp increase in one-parent families, teenage parents and abandoned children, with no-one willing to adopt them. People wont stop having sex because of the risk of getting pregnant, reproduction is genetically encoded into all of us.

Personally, I think it's more about 'making more Americans' than protecting young people, but that's my own opinion.

[Rian]

It's her fault. You can always say "no". A direct result of sex is pregnancy. Disconnection with reality often distorts that view: if you **** around, you may very well become pregnant. It's a serious choice, and people should treat it as such. The youth of America are often disconnected from reality: reconnect and it is my opinion that you deal with issues regarding youth. Teen pregnancy, no matter what the rate, is why I am personally against abortion. You start at one place, and the rest will fall into line. So yes--if she goes and ****s around and comes home pregnant, she should have to face the actual consequences of her actions instead of moseying around them. It's part of the "No, it can't happen to me!" phenomenon: it'll never happen, and if it does there's a fast and easy way to dodge reality.

Your argument boils down to “sluts deserve what they get.” Your perspective penalizes female sexuality while allowing the male to escape untouched. If you can’t see the profound injustice of this, then I’m done talking to you.

[Bob-san]

Then surely the solution is to give teenagers an education that leads to less mistakes? And Abstinence-only is not that education.

I think abstinence-only is the best approach for most people. However, having the consequences present strengthen the education.

It's her fault. You can always say "no"

RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE

Reread what I wrote.

I'm glad abortion exists, else I'd have spent several years watching a severely disabled child being killed by their own body.

As for abortion, if you think you are going to stop young people from having sex by banning contraceptives and abortion then you are, I'm afraid, seriously out of touch, all you will end up with is a vast and sharp increase in one-parent families, teenage parents and abandoned children, with no-one willing to adopt them. People wont stop having sex because of the risk of getting pregnant, reproduction is genetically encoded into all of us.

Personally, I think it's more about 'making more Americans' than protecting young people, but that's my own opinion.

I've never said ban contraceptives. I oppose abortion. My definition of when life in the womb begins isn't the instant that the sperm fertilizes the egg. My opinion is successful implantation. Anyways--as I've said as well, adoption is a better step than trying to raise a child. In economic terms, the demand for children through adoption is much greater than the supply of children available for adoption. And yes, reproduction is coded into all of us... but somehow (by your own logic), we only began as a species then in the last ~60 years. Mhmmm...

It's her fault. You can always say "no". A direct result of sex is pregnancy. Disconnection with reality often distorts that view: if you **** around, you may very well become pregnant. It's a serious choice, and people should treat it as such. The youth of America are often disconnected from reality: reconnect and it is my opinion that you deal with issues regarding youth. Teen pregnancy, no matter what the rate, is why I am personally against abortion. You start at one place, and the rest will fall into line. So yes--if she goes and ****s around and comes home pregnant, she should have to face the actual consequences of her actions instead of moseying around them. It's part of the "No, it can't happen to me!" phenomenon: it'll never happen, and if it does there's a fast and easy way to dodge reality.

Your argument boils down to “sluts deserve what they get.” Your perspective penalizes female sexuality while allowing the male to escape untouched. If you can’t see the profound injustice of this, then I’m done talking to you.

I don't think either sex should have the experimentation en masse socially acceptable.

[General Battuta]

Okay, Bob, I'm sorry, but you're about to get blasted. Please take a few deep breaths after reading in case you're upset.

It's her fault. You can always say "no". A direct result of sex is pregnancy. Disconnection with reality often distorts that view: if you **** around, you may very well make someone pregnant.

Ah, okay, you think it's the woman's fault. I was nodding in agreement with you earlier in the thread*. But now you've shown your true colors.

It takes two to have sex. You can't blame one of them and ignore the other. If you do so, you're espousing a sexist view, since you are not granting equal volition and responsibility to both sexes.

Bob-san, answer this question directly: why is it the woman's responsibility to say yes or no? Is the following statement invalid:

It's his fault. He can always say "no." A direct result of sex is pregnancy. Disconnection with reality often distorts that view: if you **** around, you may very well become pregnant.

It seems to me that you don't really care much about abortion. You're scared of female sexuality and you want it tamed and controlled. This is a not an uncommon fear, whether conscious or subconscious, among men. It's a prevalent theme in every culture of the world and we have only just begun to overcome it.

By the way, it's all right to come out and use the term 'slut' instead of just coming up with creative other ways to say it. Honesty is a virtue.

This thread has been very productive in peeling away the layers of narrative surrounding this issue and illuminating some of the fears at the core. I wonder when this fear of female sexuality first started haunting mankind. It probably has something to do with the fact that only females actually know who the father of a child was, and so males have an evolutionary incentive to try to control females.

EDIT: I see you're seventeen. That explains a lot! I had similar feelings when I was seventeen and still in that self-righteous virgin stage. I was even anti-abortion. You'll grow through it.

I'm sorry if I sounded harsh; I didn't realize this when I posted.

Please read the following links before posting again, Bob-san:

Abortion rates are the same whether or not abortion is legal (WHO study, published in Lancet.)

I suspect that when you read this article you will try to suggest that a) because abortion rates are low in Africa, where abortions are frequently illegal and b) many women die of complications from abortion, abortions should be banned so as to keep women safe.

Please read the following paragraphs, excerpted from that article, carefully. You can also find this study covered on the New York Times, if for some reason you consider MSNBC untrustworthy.

Women are just as likely to get an abortion in countries where it is outlawed as they are in countries where it is legal, according to research published Friday.

In a study examining abortion trends from 1995 to 2003, experts also found that abortion rates are virtually equal in rich and poor countries, and that half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe. The vast majority of abortions — 35 million — were in the developing world. And nearly 97 percent of all unsafe abortions were in poor countries. Worldwide, one in five pregnancies ends in abortion.

...

“The legal status of abortion has never dissuaded women and couples, who, for whatever reason, seek to end pregnancy,” Beth Fredrick of the International Women’s Health Coalition in the U.S. said in an accompanying commentary. (Emphasis mine - Battuta.)


Abortion accounts for 13 percent of maternal mortality worldwide. About 70,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions. An additional 5 million women suffer permanent or temporary injury.
The study defined unsafe abortions as those performed either by people lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimum medical standards.

...

Improving women’s health, experts said, means improving access to safe abortions. Some experts criticized the restrictions that often come with donor money. Funds from the U.S. government, for example, cannot be used in any health services associated with abortion.

The gist is this: improving legal access to safe abortions prevents unsafe abortions. Total abortion rates do not change. All that we can affect is whether women have safe or unsafe (frequently deadly) abortions. Once more: if you cut back on legal abortions, women will have more unsafe abortions, and the total number of abortions will remain the same. More women will die.

Please understand that this data utterly demolishes your hypothesis. Your hypothesis is that banning abortion will lower abortion rates and make people more scared of pregnancy.

This is untrue. Instead, pregnancy rates remain the same, and illegal abortions increase.

Let me emphasize this one more time by re-quoting the article:

“The only way to decrease unsafe abortion is to increase contraception,” said Sharon Camp, president and chief executive officer of the Guttmacher Institute.

You are factually wrong. You will now attempt to interpret the article or data in a way that preserves your worldview, I assume. Perhaps you will claim that the research in question is biased, or that the media is misreporting it. Please review this as well:

Affective death spirals: something both you and I need to be aware of.

* I was nodding in agreement with the idea that preventing pregnancies is very important, even if I disagree with your methods (which are clearly not supported by peer-reviewed research, as linked just above.)

[Flipside]

And yes, reproduction is coded into all of us... but somehow (by your own logic), we only began as a species then in the last ~60 years. Mhmmm...

Where did you get that idea from? There were ways of inducing a miscarriage in use thousands of years ago, they were extremely dangerous because women had to do it via a 'backstreet' technique, because men who were too bloody arrogant to see women as anything other than 'baby machines' were against abortion.

Basically, being anti-choice has exactly the same effect. Look at Prohibition, Abstention wouldn't work any better.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion#History_of_abortion

[Bob-san]

How about I simplify this all to where it started. I am opposed to abortion as the result of my own values. I will vote for the candidate that I see fit, relying on my own values and the perceived values of each candidate. I think it is ethically wrong, I think morally it's a sin, philosophically that it's a dangerous purging of new ideas, biologically that it's the answer to only certain conditions, and as a result should be legally banned.

[General Battuta]

I see you have no response. You say abortion is a sin even when you have been shown that banning abortion leads to mutilation and death of women. I wish both women and babies could be saved, but when it is a choice between babies dying or women and babies dying -- the choice is clear.

Please read what I said carefully and consider it. Many people find their convictions changing over the years, and perhaps, as you grow, so will yours.

You have made it clear that many of your objections are based on things (i.e. fear of female sexuality) that will change as you grow. Once you are in a relationship, I hope that you will grow to respect and cherish everyone's right to physical sexual expression, instead of condemning female sexuality as 'sleeping around' while giving males a free pass.

I think we've both said everything we want to say, and if we get in a debate again anywhere on the forum, I'll begin it with a clean slate. Best of luck to you.

[Flipside]

Yes, my wife was called a murderer and a sinner for having an abortion too.

I wont even bother to tell you my opinion of the people who shouted that, shouldn't think I need to. Suffice to say it convinced me of exactly why I stopped going to church. One minute it's forgiveness and 'God will judge us', the next minute it's 'you're going to burn in Hell because I say so'.

To quote Chief Sitting Bull, 'I like your Christians, I hope one day to meet one.'

[General Battuta]

I'm sorry to hear that, Flipside.

As a person raised (happily) Christian who later became an atheist but maintains warm feelings towards my own church, I do want to say that many churches are more tolerant, so if you ever find a place you do like, give it a shot.

[Flipside]

Thanks. To be honest, some of my own family are devout Christians, I don't really begrudge them that, and some of the Vicars I have met have been genuinely nice people who were shocked and somewhat outraged when I told them about it, so I don't entirely hold Christians in contempt, but I do think too many of them see themselves as Judge, Jury and Executioner of 'Gods Will', whilst at the some time saying 'No-one can understand God's Will'. Except them, apparently.

[karajorma]

How about I simplify this all to where it started. I am opposed to abortion as the result of my own values. I will vote for the candidate that I see fit, relying on my own values and the perceived values of each candidate. I think it is ethically wrong, I think morally it's a sin, philosophically that it's a dangerous purging of new ideas, biologically that it's the answer to only certain conditions, and as a result should be legally banned.

I notice you avoided the more pragmatic argument I made earlier though.

Go ahead though. Vote for McCain. Vote for more abortions. And if McCain does win and the abortion rates go up I'm sure you can find a way to blame liberals for it even though you were warned it would happen.

[Bob-san]

And as I said, my vote for a congress(wo)man or senator will be more effective in dealing with what I consider a genocide. Other than that, other issues important to me are typically supported by McCain more-so than Obama.

[General Battuta]

...except for the part where abortion rates stay the same whether abortion is legal or illegal...are you forgetting that?

Babies aren't an ethnic group, so it's just mass murder.  Add it to biocide and xenocide as one of those crimes that humanity seems perfectly cool with!

Most human pregnancies spontaneously abort anyway, so we're not actually changing much.

Anyway, let's get back on topic.

[MP-Ryan]

Most human pregnancies spontaneously abort anyway, so we're not actually changing much.

Upwards of 98% I believe.

I guess that means all female bodies are sinners by definition.  Oh well - ban women, problem solved.  /sarcasm

[Flipside]

Most human pregnancies spontaneously abort anyway, so we're not actually changing much.

Upwards of 98% I believe.

I guess that means all female bodies are sinners by definition.  Oh well - ban women, problem solved.  /sarcasm

Better still, make them wear full-body clothing and stone those that dare show a bit of leg, thus tempting the men.

Oh wait....

[Rian]

Upwards of 98% I believe.

In the interest of accuracy, I think that’s an exaggeration. The numbers I’ve heard are more like a third to a half, increasing with the age of the parents. It’s dangerous to conflate failure to implant with abortion, spontaneous or otherwise – this is the root of the (false) anti-choice claim that some birth-control methods, including Plan B, are abortifacients.

Beyond that, however, I agree with the sentiment of your post.

[Flipside]

The UK Medical association says that the number of pregnancies that spontaneously abort are at least 50%, possibly higher, so Rian is correct.

It should also be noted that, by the definition that a fertilised egg is a life, as has been mentioned here before, every Roman Catholic that has ever used the Rhythm method is a mass-murderer.

[General Battuta]

Waaait, how?

[Bob-san]

Explain how you come to that conclusion, Flipside. Not having sex when the woman is fertile is somehow a sin? And do note that extramarital sex is considered a sin as it is, but natural family planning has been approved by the Vatican. And the Vatican is reconsidering the the use of contraceptives.