paxetaurora said:
Not all abortions are a matter of "convenience." While there may well be some women who can ask for an abortion like you or I might order a sandwich, abortion is, I believe, often a very heartwrenching decision and sits in the midst of a host of lousy choices for women unprepared, for whatever reason, to have children.
Sorry, not a subscriber to the old 'better off dead' theory.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: If you want to get serious about creating a "culture of life" in this country, you have to create an environment in which women with unplanned pregnancies are supported in every possible way to have their babies. Top-flight, government subsidized day care. Better employment and post-secondary education programs. Comprehensive, long-term, universal health care for mothers, children, and people everywhere. Better schools. The list goes on and on, but most often, poor women, with little or no support from partners, friends, or family and an uncaring government and broad society, will unfortunately choose abortion more likely than not.
Sounds like socialism to me. Sorry, I don't believe the government has to pay for everything before a child's life is worth something. If they did all that, isn't that just the same as being on 'welfare?'
And I ask you all: Could you do it? Could you go through with a pregnancy knowing that both you and your child would likely live at a level of poverty that ought to embarrass every living American? Could you go through with it, knowing that you would be looked down upon as the mother of a child born out of wedlock, knowing that you would be labeled a "welfare mom" and that your child a "bastard"?
Ahem. Yes, I have. All except the bastard part. But even that doesn't make much difference anymore, there is almost no stigma left for out of wedlock kids. My Mom and aunties bemoan this all the time- no one has any shame anymore! they say, because there are so many 'bastards' it's not a big deal or a disgrace anymore.
Perhaps because I have lived 'at that level', it has shown me that life is more than material things, and death is not preferrable to a less than good life! Are you saying that a kid is better off dead if it isn't born into a perfect home and a family with money? Then millions around the world, including me and my kids, might as well be dead already. Sorry, I find that bit a little offensive, because I have been so poor, but I survived. You college girls, yuppies and happy suburbanites must think all of us below you are better off dead!
There have been many people from such backgrounds who have used their hardship to rise above it and become great and famous. On the other side, there have been millionaire's kids who have ended up dead of drugs in a gutter. MONEY IS NOT EVERYTHING! It should not determine who lives and dies or who is worthy of a life!
It would take a lot more than a simple law outlawing abortions to create a "culture of life." And a law enacted to ban abortions, without that accompanying culture in place, would do very little to stop abortions from taking place. Women who really wanted them would go back to have unsafe, illegal abortions as they did before Roe v. Wade. Witness the "war on drugs"--has it stopped anyone who really wants drugs from getting them? Not so much. The same would happen with abortion.
I agree the war on drugs is a stupid waste that has done no good. But all those 'back alley' abortions you hear about mostly took place before the days of The Pill. With contraception so common as easy to obtain (Even free at the health dept. for the poor!) there should be far less unwanted pregnancies than there were in those days. Perhaps if there were limits on abortion some people would be more careful. Hey, I'm a woman, I know it's not all that easy to get pregnant, and it's easy to avoid without much trouble at all!
BTW, I never said there shouldn't be exceptions for extreme cases of threat to the mother's life. I have a friend who is just as anti-abortion as I am who had to have emergency surgery for a burst fallopian tube due to a tubal pregnancy. Some people told her that was an abortion, but come on, it wouldn't have lived anyway, it couldn't grow in a busted tube, and she would have bled to death!
But again,
98% of all US abortions are NOT due to rape, incest or heath reasons.
Also remember, papers all over the country are full of ads from infertile couples begging to adopt a baby!