When does life begin?

I am pro life. It's my opinion that even if the woman was raped, abortion should still not be an option. Killing another human may make life easier, but it is still morally wrong. As someone stated above, we all have problems. People need to learn to take what life throws at them.
 
Personally, I have no real problem with the current law (at least the one I know of that stands in the UK). The pregnancy may be aborted until the fetus is 24 weeks old (IIRC), and this is the point at which it is generally accepted the baby would be able to survive outside the womb, even if severe brain damage might possibly be an issue. IMO, this is the point when life begins, where the fetus becomes a human baby. Of course this is just my personal opinion, and I respect the views of others who believe all abortion is wrong.
 
LDguy- viability is a gauge of our medical technology, not our humanity. It's only in recent times that we could care for preemies as well as we can. It's not as if technology makes us more human.
 
No, but knowledge is a key part to the building up of human nature, and always has been: it's the way we are. On topic, I still think that a baby being able to survive outside of the womb is justification for not proceding with abortion, whether this being relative to technological advances or not.
 
I suppose I'll commend you sir. I admire your stance. I'd be happy as shit if that's how it worked in the USA. But it's not :(
 
I am pro life unless the woman was raped and could not find a family to adopt the child (she might get depressed and kill her baby or hurt him/her after the birth)or if her life is at risk.

Like some users here said, everyone has problems. And babies don't 'happen', you 'make' them. It takes two people, that I assume have brains and know the risks. You can use a condom *and also prevent STDs*, and woman can take the pills too (the pills are cheap and 100% effective).
So if you screw up, deal with it. People should stop trying to make things the easy way.


About the poor families having 7+ kids, I think most of them know what they are doing and do it to get money from the Government. At least that's the reason why they do it here. (If they have more than 7 kids they get more money per child...and the government uses these people as a political tool for votes, protests, etc. IMHO, I don't think that giving them money or letting them have abortions are good solutions to this problem. I think that giving them a proper education and a decent job is the way. Making them understand that they need to work hard to satisfy their needs).
 
My take on abortion is that only one authority has the exclusive right to end a life and that's Almighty God. With that belief it doesn't matter when it begins or is set in motion. I do not judge or look down on those that kill for whatever reason, at any stage of development or out of the womb. I do not meddle in the "God" domain. That's my thought on the subject.
 
A fetus is clearly alive. It is clearly a human (homo sapien). None of that gives it higher value than the woman who is pregnant with the fetus, nor her choice for how she wants to live out her life. Pro-choice activists spend too much time trying to skirt around the first two issues (yes it is alive, yes it is a human) because of the vast presence of religious and humanist ideology.

The bare fact that there is human life does not make it valuable. A fetus has virtually no consciousness or capacity for pain, and I doubt it has "experiences" in a way that implies that we should be concerned for its well being. He or she is just a small cluster of developing cells that has no grounds for value without the projection of a soul or the deification of human qua human.

All of that is only from a philosophical level. From a sociological level it is even more evident that free, public abortions for all women who want them is a very sensible step for our society. Lets consider what unwanted pregnancies contribute to:

Overpopulation: easy enough to see.

Increase in crime: parents who are not ready to be parents are more likely to have children who are no attended to and thus become involved in deviant behavior.

Misogyny: Woman who have children too early in life have a much harder time getting educated, getting quality jobs and thus have trouble being self-sustaining. Then of course, there are the stigmas against single mothers. Also, these women are more likely to become dependent on a no-good or abusive man because they have to take care of a baby.

Racism and classism: The poor are less likely to be educated about contraception (especially in a backwards country like the USA) and therefore have an unplanned pregnancy. Having a child early obviously makes it much harder to have improve one's education and social standing. Since its difficult to find a publicly subsidized abortion (again, at least somewhere like the US) the poor are more likely to be stuck with a child they are not ready to take care of, while a rich person can go to their private care provider for an abortion.
 
I believe life begins at conception. People can argue about the fact that a fetus doesnt have a brain, or heart and use that as an excuse for abortion and embryo research, but maybe the fetus has a soul.

As far as abortion goes, im not keen on it. I dont like it when there's loads of protesters outside clinics, but i dont agree with it. For one, there needs to be way more education on this sort of things, and definatly more emphasis on relationships as a pose to sex. If you have sex, even if you use protection, there is every risk you can get pregnant. I'm not sure what i think as far as rape goes, but i guess there's always adoption and things. People almost take advantage of the fact abortions are given so easily, and use no protection, and that's wrong... I dont know, i respect its people's choice to an extent, but i wouldn't advise it if someone asked me.
 
I believe life begins at conception. People can argue about the fact that a fetus doesnt have a brain, or heart and use that as an excuse for abortion and embryo research, but maybe the fetus has a soul.

As far as abortion goes, im not keen on it. I dont like it when there's loads of protesters outside clinics, but i dont agree with it. For one, there needs to be way more education on this sort of things, and definatly more emphasis on relationships as a pose to sex. If you have sex, even if you use protection, there is every risk you can get pregnant. I'm not sure what i think as far as rape goes, but i guess there's always adoption and things. People almost take advantage of the fact abortions are given so easily, and use no protection, and that's wrong... I dont know, i respect its people's choice to an extent, but i wouldn't advise it if someone asked me.

there are a lot of women who never use condoms because they claim that they love the sensation of semen ejaculating into their birth canal, and when some of those specific women won't even try to use any other type of birth control just because they "can just get an abortion" then, yeah, i understand where you're coming from, but i said i was "pro-abotion" because i feel that for rape, incest, a 40-year-old pedophile impregnating a 9-year-old, these are situations where abortions should be mandatory as opposed to being merely "an option"
 
there are a lot of women who never use condoms because they claim that they love the sensation of semen ejaculating into their birth canal, and when some of those specific women won't even try to use any other type of birth control just because they "can just get an abortion" then, yeah, i understand where you're coming from, but i said i was "pro-abotion" because i feel that for rape, incest, a 40-year-old pedophile impregnating a 9-year-old, these are situations where abortions should be mandatory as opposed to being merely "an option"

I totally get where your coming from, I dont know what i think about rape and incest, but i think abortion should be ok with paedophiles. Is it possible to impregnate a 9 year old girl though? Its certainly not a black and white area of opinion. Maybe each case should be looked at to its own? The fact is though, there is always adoption these days. And many people cant have children.
 
I totally get where your coming from, I dont know what i think about rape and incest, but i think abortion should be ok with paedophiles. Is it possible to impregnate a 9 year old girl though? Its certainly not a black and white area of opinion. Maybe each case should be looked at to its own? The fact is though, there is always adoption these days. And many people cant have children.

in The-Bible-Belt area of America, the average girl has her first menstrual cycle younger that anywhere else on earth, it has to do with the hormones in the local food, i've personnally met several women that started mensturating within a couple months of their 7th birthday, and i still stand by my original assesment, if an 8-year-old gets impregnated, if the child is the product of a forceful rape, if the child's parents are brother-and-sister, in these cases, an abotion should be mandatory
 
in The-Bible-Belt area of America, the average girl has her first menstrual cycle younger that anywhere else on earth, it has to do with the hormones in the local food, i've personnally met several women that started mensturating within a couple months of their 7th birthday, and i still stand by my original assesment, if an 8-year-old gets impregnated, if the child is the product of a forceful rape, if the child's parents are brother-and-sister, in these cases, an abotion should be mandatory

Whoa really? I've never known any of this happen before is all. I totally buy what your saying, and i'm not saying i don't agree with it. I'm just saying i'm not sure what i think, because i've personally never encountered any of these problems in my life, and hope to god i never do. So, i cannot comment on it truly from an experience point of view. All i know is, in most cases, abortion isnt the way forward, and is used for all the wrong reasons.
 
The controversy of abortion is due to differing moralty within each individual or group. Since no one person, group, or government can or should dictate one's moralty within reason (and I feel abortion is within reason), then the option of abortion should always be there for those who choose it. In poverty stricken countries, larger governments and Human Resources have found that if you give women power over their reproduction rate by making birth control and abortion avaiable to them, the overall economic, health and education situation within that country rises. This method has proved itself time and time again. So I guess you could through me with the rest of the Pro-Choice people! :rofl:
 
Whoa really? I've never known any of this happen before is all. I totally buy what your saying, and i'm not saying i don't agree with it. I'm just saying i'm not sure what i think, because i've personally never encountered any of these problems in my life, and hope to god i never do. So, i cannot comment on it truly from an experience point of view. All i know is, in most cases, abortion isnt the way forward, and is used for all the wrong reasons.

i really am speaking from experience
i don't wanna reveal too much about my personnal life
but i interact with a lot of pregnant women
and i've personnally met the 9-year-olds that got impregnated by pedophiles, the women who got impregnated from a forcefull rape, the women who got impregnated from brother-sister incest, i've met those women, both the ones that got abortions and also the children of those who didn't, when the women get abotions, i feel the same relief they feel, and when i have to interact with the infants that are the product of a 9-year-old getting impregnated by a pedophile, the infants that are the product of forceful rapes and brother-sister-incest, when i interact with these infants, it makes my skin crawl, my stomach churn, because these children shouldn't exist
 
Like it or not, life begins when the fetus performs the life processes on its own. I am personally pro choice, but (for the most part) anti abortion. The availability of abortion in the states helped lower crime rates. I think it is wrong to use abortion as birth control, but I think it should be legal and regulated, because if it were illegal, people would likely get abused in illegal abortions.