It's my right to have vaginal sex, and it's my right to not have a foreign entity living inside my body. Obviously anyone who doesn't want to be pregnant is going to go as far as their education allows in preventing a pregnancy, but to say "if you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex" puts pressure exclusively on women to not have sex. Where's the consequence for men who have sex and get someone pregnant? Oh, right, pregnancy is a women's issue.
There is a fundamental inequality in the genders regarding this whole issue; I completely agree with that sentiment, and that it can really suck in many respects. But short of a sex change, there isn't really any way to resolve that biologically. The only way to attempt to equal that playing field is correcting the woeful inadequacies that exist in the support network for pregnant women. I'd love it if the world as a whole would force all the deadbeat baby daddies out there to man up and take responsibility for their half of the act, since I view them as a disgrace to my own gender. That aside, the world is what it is, and I have to make my belief calls within what we're given.
"Rest of your life"? Try several months. This isn't something that an unwilling recipient has to deal with for the rest of her life.
If you think that choosing to bring a life into this world is only something that affects you for several months you should get a ****ing vasectomy now. Not to mention stopping sanctimoniously lecturing the rest of us about responsibility. You've already proved that you aren't with that statement.
Give me a break, kara. You and I both know that that was exclusively responding to your "rest of your life" hyperbole, and nothing else. Yes, there is an emotional impact that lingers from any situation like that, but if the baby is put up for adoption, from a physical and economic standpoint, the birth mother's responsibility ends as soon as the birth itself does. And trust me, I know full well the responsibilities and challenges inherent in raising a child, I'd like to think significantly better than at least a few other people around here.
You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish. Don't want to have even a remote chance of that? Then don't have vaginal sex. Really, I don't know any other way to convey that sentiment more clearly.
Why? Cause some religious guy believes that a collection of cells is a lifeform? I don't believe that. Why should I have to live my life conforming to your twisted and ridiculous beliefs of what constitutes a life?
Labeling the legitimate viewpoint of a large percentage of people on the other side of the debate "ridiculous" and "twisted" sure is an easy out, isn't it? Call me when you're ready to ditch the ad hominems.
Putting aside issues such as financial or societal pressure, when it comes down to a simple "I don't want to" opinion, I think it's just one massive case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection, but you do it anyway. And if you wind up falling in that 1%, you just snuff that entity out, just because it would inconvenience you. There's a staggering simple alternative, one that still allows one to think with one's pants, but no, that'd be far too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, let's build up a big international abortion industry, just so we can keep screwing in the coochie. Wonderful, humanity.
When you start going on about the abortion industry you really show how badly you've lost the plot on this one. 
Wanna explain that one to me, chief? The abortion industry as it stands is part and parcel with the concept of legalized abortion, since that's precisely where said abortions take place. And while I could rail on said industry directly, I only meant that statement in the general sense that an entire dedicated industry has been able to thrive just on the desire for abortions, which I think by any standards is a pretty sad fact.
You know what amazes me the most about this thread, kara? When I see new posts appear in this thread, it's not the decidedly-liberal feminist I'm worried about verbally reaming me out, even though one would think she'd have by far the greatest cause to...it's
you. You have such a fantastic way of declaring an opposing side's fundamental viewpoint to be completely invalid by default, as if you're the omniscient arbiter of such things. You're singlehandedly reminding me of why I've loathed getting into these sorts of GD arguments so much in the past; it really isn't worth the anxiety of wondering if I'll get royally pissed off by a set of responses each and every time I visit the boards. If I could find a nice stopping point to bail out of this now without looking like I was running with my tail between my legs, I would in an instant.
This thread seems to be heading back into flame territory. If people like Mongoose and TESLA want to define human life as beginning at conception, fine. But don't force that view on me or my friends. Practice it in your own lives rather than trying to enshrine it in legislation.
Because, as has already been pointed out: BANNING ABORTION DOES NOT CHANGE ABORTION RATES.
But again, Battuta, that's the kicker. If one does define human life as beginning at conception, then it follows that one has to view the act of abortion as at least some degree of murder. And as such, holding that definition is true, one is essentially ethically obligated to work against legalized abortion. Trust me, there are many disagreements in viewpoint I have with the majority of you that I feel are completely not worth arguing over, since when it comes down to it, they aren't affecting myself or anyone else. But in this case, where I believe that someone else
is being affected, the "forcing" becomes something of an obligation.
And no, I'm not that naive to think that abortions wouldn't still happen if they were declared illegal. But to remove that endorsement from the law, to state that we, as a society, do not condone such actions, would be a massive step forward for me. To pass such a law in the first place would require a significant shifting of attitudes in this country, and I'd like to think that said shifting would correspond in a reduction of abortion numbers across the board, whether you're talking about the legal or illegal sense.
(And I probably missed something else in the five other posts that just popped up, but screw that.
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