Abortion

[font=verdana][color=green]I'm just going to skip over the Flaser/FPOD debate, as it's quickly descending into tit-for-tat exchanges, which is not what I'm here for. I will address the OP and the OP alone.

Personally, I'm a moderate pro-choice. As I'm sure many of you will know, this means that I support abortion being available to women, but only under strict conditions. For example, the baby will endanger the mother's life if she tries to give birth to it or that the baby had serious genetic issues, but the latter point is a different topic of discussion.

If abortions were only allowed in these circumstances, I would say that abortions should be paid for by taxes; as they are saving the lives of women. If a women couldn't afford an abortion that would save her life, then the baby would be, literally, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, which would bring a great deal of stress to the women.

However, the availability of abortions isn't like that. In the UK, a women needs permission from two individual doctors before she can be granted an abortion and there are stringent regulations i.e. state of the woman's mind etc. The abortion reasons stretch far and wide; not being able to finance the child, not wanting the child or being raped - which I'll discuss at length later. Barring the final reason, I believe that abortions of this nature should not be financed by taxes. These reasons are purely of the fancy and caprice of the women who chose to have them. I'm not saying they can't have abortions; but they can forget it if they want our taxes spent on them.

As I said above, I will now move onto the difficult topic of rape. When a women is raped, them not wanting the child can be a very likely reaction. They will forever be daunted by the rapist in the form of an innocent child. However, the law of rape can be a very thick, sloppy swamp to wade through. Proving rape can be very hard, yet many innocent men have been falsely accused of rape and locked up for several months before being found innocent, at which point the damage had been done.

Whose to say that this same difficulty can't be applied to the abortion table? Many women, who want to have an abortion but can't, may play to rape card to get a free one. However, this will be too easy an escape clause for them. In this conundrum, I believe that an I.O.U/fine scheme would be best. I would like to have a scheme where, unless a rapist isn't convicted for their rape, they can't get an abortion; but by then the time-limit would have expired. Therefore, the idea will run as so: whenever a women wishes to have an abortion, but isn't in danger of losing her life/child have genetic issues, and they claim that they have been raped, they will be forewarned that, unless a rapist is convicted for their rape/there is no shadow of a doubt that they were raped, they will be committing a crime of fraud - of course the sentence will be hefty to deter people using it as an easy option for abortion.

So, that sums up my opinions on the three scenarios around abortion: Mother in Danger/Genetic issues with Child; Fancy or Caprice of Women; Rape.

I was tired yesterday from the STUDENT OF DOOM, so I didn't answer then.

If you look back a couple of pages, the issue of adoption has already been addressed. It has been stated several times on this thread that adoption is not always the best solution. But if you want a more in-depth explanation, here it is.

For one thing, as Flaser said:



I absolutely agree with him. Pregnancy isn't a cakewalk. Pregnancy can and does kill women, and even if it doesn't, it's a huge strain. It's expensive to pay for pre-natal visits and labor and delivery, and if the woman is poor, how is she to pay for that? Under the NHS, I suppose those are covered, but still, the loss of work hours for doctor's visits and for maternal leave could make a dent in one's finances. I did post some numbers earlier--too lazy to look for that post but in the US it was about $400 for an abortion vs. at least $8000 for carrying a pregnancy to term. And for what? Would this child even have a good chance for a better life with adoption?

I've said before on the thread that the foster care/adoption system is already swamped with a unwanted children. Skymir also mentioned this fact in this post:



(Emphasis mine)

Why add to that if the woman does not want to? It's not like if you pop out a child, there is instantly and magically a set of adoptive parents that will want it. White, healthy babies are more "prized" by adoptive parents, while Black (or other minority) and/or babies with disabilities and other health problems have trouble being adopted and end up languishing in orphanages or the foster care system until they get kicked off.

Sure, as you said, you can add funding to the adoption system to make the lives of these children a little better, but that still does not address the fact that there are more adoptable children than potential adopters. Adoption isn't cheap. In the US adoptive parents can expect to pay between $5,000 to $40,000, depending on the circumstances of the adoption. For that price, many childless couples would rather pay for IVF or other assisted reproduction technologies to get their own biological child, rather than adopt a child. Some adoptive parents would also rather adopt from abroad rather than from "the system," for various reasons. This would decrease the likelihood that the child would be adopted.

There is also the emotional strain that the both the birth mother and adoptive families can go through. Pro-lifers like to say that abortion can give you mental health issues, but in reality, those are more likely to happen with adoption. Birth mothers can suffer from depression, anxiety, and a slew of other mental health disorders due to the grief of separation from the child. Adoptive children can suffer from attachment difficulties, behavioural problems, learning disabilities and so forth--if the adoptive child was from a poor mother who did not get good pre-natal care and nutrition during the pregnancy, this is more likely to happen. Those problems can cause further strain in adoptive families. Some sources estimate that up to 2/3 of adoptions have moderate to severe problems.

Now, I'm not saying that adoption is always bad, but it definitely has a longer list of problems associated with it, and these problems are more common than you would think. This is why I fucking hate it when people throw it out as a solution to unwanted pregnancies like it's not a big deal at all. If the woman wants to go through it, great--more power to her, and she should absolutely be supported in this issue--but adoption should not be forced upon anyone just because they did not have the resources to undergo an abortion.

Finally, on the point about society paying for the mistake or irresponsibility, Razbutane does bring up the point that even if the child were delivered, that is also society paying--and paying much, much MORE, at that. You may say that it's more moral to do so, but others, myself included, may feel that it is more immoral and irresponsible to bring into the world a child that you know will not be cared for. Sex happens, and even with planning, women may get pregnant. You can crow about responsibility and maturity until the cows come home, but it's just a fact of life that humans are sexual beings and that shit happens. I would rather that women have access to a full range of choices for unplanned pregnancies--whether that is abortion, adoption, or keeping the baby--rather than limiting it due to finances or laws or whatever reason.

I'm just going to skip over the Flaser/FPOD debate, as it's quickly descending into tit-for-tat exchanges, which is not what I'm here for. I will address the OP and the OP alone.

Personally, I'm a moderate pro-choice. As I'm sure many of you will know, this means that I support abortion being available to women, but only under strict conditions. For example, the baby will endanger the mother's life if she tries to give birth to it or that the baby had serious genetic issues, but the latter point is a different topic of discussion.

If abortions were only allowed in these circumstances, I would say that abortions should be paid for by taxes; as they are saving the lives of women. If a women couldn't afford an abortion that would save her life, then the baby would be, literally, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, which would bring a great deal of stress to the women.

However, the availability of abortions isn't like that. In the UK, a women needs permission from two individual doctors before she can be granted an abortion and there are stringent regulations i.e. state of the woman's mind etc. The abortion reasons stretch far and wide; not being able to finance the child, not wanting the child or being raped - which I'll discuss at length later. Barring the final reason, I believe that abortions of this nature should not be financed by taxes. These reasons are purely of the fancy and caprice of the women who chose to have them. I'm not saying they can't have abortions; but they can forget it if they want our taxes spent on them.

As I said above, I will now move onto the difficult topic of rape. When a women is raped, them not wanting the child can be a very likely reaction. They will forever be daunted by the rapist in the form of an innocent child. However, the law of rape can be a very thick, sloppy swamp to wade through. Proving rape can be very hard, yet many innocent men have been falsely accused of rape and locked up for several months before being found innocent, at which point the damage had been done.

Whose to say that this same difficulty can't be applied to the abortion table? Many women, who want to have an abortion but can't, may play to rape card to get a free one. However, this will be too easy an escape clause for them. In this conundrum, I believe that an I.O.U/fine scheme would be best. I would like to have a scheme where, unless a rapist isn't convicted for their rape, they can't get an abortion; but by then the time-limit would have expired. Therefore, the idea will run as so: whenever a women wishes to have an abortion, but isn't in danger of losing her life/child have genetic issues, and they claim that they have been raped, they will be forewarned that, unless a rapist is convicted for their rape/there is no shadow of a doubt that they were raped, they will be committing a crime of fraud - of course the sentence will be hefty to deter people using it as an easy option for abortion.

So, that sums up my opinions on the three scenarios around abortion: Mother in Danger/Genetic issues with Child; Fancy or Caprice of Women; Rape.