Quotations and Literature Forum

Yes or no?
Should a woman have 100% choice with her body?
And if so, at what age? Should little 14 year old susie two shoes be allowed to get one without telling mommy and daddy?
Should the father have a say either way?
Should there be term limits? When is a baby a baby? 6 weeks? 36 weeks? Birth? Chime in all!
Yin

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We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

"Life should be sacred.no matter at what stage...No life asks to be formed.. especially in the case of human life...If one is not ready, for whatever reason...prevent it rather than abort it. .." Blacky

Far to many variables for a simple, all encompassing, answer. One needs to be involved personally, in an individual case, to have any right to comment

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السلام عليكم

Winner!

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The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.

Here's a 12-year old girl with a very effective pro-life speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOR1wUqvJS4

It's only five minutes, take the time to watch it - she pretty much sums it all up!

Completely agree.

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The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

Yin, does Sophia's birth have an effect on this matter, in your eyes?

So you can't give an opinion on a 20 something year old woman who forgot to take her pill and wound up pregnant?
You can't give your personal opinion of someone who finds that they are going to give birth to a child that will most likely be born retarded, with HIV, or a genetic disease that will haunt the child for the rest of their lives?

Tommy, yes, my little girl being born made me think deeper on this topic than I ever had. Honestly, abortion was my first thought. I am not married to her mother, nor am I planning on marrying her. I am not in a good position to be raising a child, as I am leaving for the military in a few months. But now that I've held her, bathed her, clothed her, fed her, comforted her, and rocked her back to sleep, and found true love for another person, I became disgusted with the idea that I even contemplated her mother getting an abortion.

However, I did not bring up the topic to chew anyone out or give them a verbal beating if they were pro choice. I was curious of others opinions. And I am well aware, as I would hope the others in the forum are, of the different situations prospective parents find themselves in. I was hoping for opinions of some of those situations. My opinion changed drastically, from before I knew I was going to be a father, to after I found out, and again after I became one.

I'll just throw out my opinions, as they are now and as they once were.

I used to think:
Abortions were bad. They were only to be used in cases of Rape, inscest, serious risk of death to mother or child, or for girls too young to be having kids (14 year old mothers just aren't right). Also, if it became known early on that the child would be mentally challenged or have a genetic disorder it should be the choice of the parents whether they kept it.

Then I found out I was going to be a daddy. I then thought:
Abortions are bad, but the lesser of two evils. Having a child born to parents who are not together neither of which are truly fit to be great parents is worse that never letting it see the light of day.

Then she was born. Now I think:
Everything I said the first time. Make it work. Find a way. no parents are great parents. we all have our faults, our downfalls. but if we realize that fact and then simply try to do right by our children, everything might turn out ok.

Yin

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We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

I couldn't even begin to imagine the number of possible circumstance, and I'm slightly reluctant to get judgmental about circumstances I know nothing about. Opinions I have, but they are irrelevant until I am involved personally.
Oh, and here 'retarded' is considered insulting we use 'intellectual disability'. It describes the condition, without defining the person. (Purely as a point of interest.)

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السلام عليكم

The last stance I presented to this forum was a pro-choice one. Even since, I've toiled with this issue many times over and have changed my stance again and again. And I may have already said this, but what the hell. Yin wants opinions.

For one, I don't think anyone really wants abortion. No one is "pro-abortion" - yay, let's go get an abortion! Let's get rid of this "accident." So, really I don't support what it is and what it does because I see a zygote as something that will become a person. An acorn becomes an oak.

It also sets precedent. If I can kill this baby, why can't I kill my grandmother? Because she breathes air and the baby doesn't? Because of where the fetus is? Is its structure not the same inside of the womb as it is outside? If you want to get technical - then, no because of prenatal development. But if I was born 2 months pre-maturely, wasn't I still a fetus? Why is it that I was a baby after I passed through the birth canal?

Once, I was talking to a co-worker about my family. I told him that my parents always wanted eight kids and they got nine! And he said, "What the hell difference is one kid? Oh..... you."

After that conversation, I saw more clearly the value of a single human life.

There are other points I could present but I forget them.

How can anyone presume to give an opinion in all the circumstances where this question will arise ?

The discussion here seems to assume that every child is going to be given an equal chance in life. The fact that you contribute to the forum and bring up a discussion like this indicates that you are capable of making your own decisions, that you are receiving education, that you have an inkling of ethics and morals and, generally, that you come from secure and caring backgrounds. It seems to me you are only applying this problem to circumstances you can relate to.

Suppose you live in a filthy teeming slum or a shanty town or city tenements, suppose all kids are there for is abuse, because that's how you've been treated, suppose you are not of the highest intelligence and can barely manage your own miserable existence, let alone care for a child?

Suppose you're a mother with eleven children already and a husband who cannot provide, so your older kids are already working and if you have another one of them will be sold off or thrown out to fend for themselves?

You think those examples are extreme or not usual? Do you think they only apply to "undeveloped countries"? Think again.

Can you really give an opinion?

GT

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The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

Just speaking in generalities, that's all.

Much better class

GT- The point of the discussion is to acknowledge the fact that there are different circumstances, including the world in which the child will be born. But that's the question. THAT is the debate. are 3rd world living conditions where death seems a more suitable option for those who can (barely) function on their own, reason enough to end a potential life?

Tommy- I ask you, when does a sperm/egg combination become the equivalent to your grandmother (a homo-sapien)
When IS a baby a baby? Is a baby "alive" when it could potentially be born (2 months premature, as you said) and survive on its own?

DSW- not trying to pressure words from you, a choice not to give an opinion is your choice. However you give good insight and I would like to hear opinions from everyone. I understand that you would not like to pass judgement on situations that you are not part of, and therefore in your opinion you have to right to pass judgement on. I was not alive in 1945. I am of very slight Jewish decent, but I do not practice the religion, nor do I personally know anyone who spent time in Nazi Death camps. However, I have an opinion on the situation. Just a thought.

Also, not to take this topic off track, But what do you mean by "here" and "we" when you talked about my apparent improper use of the term retarded? And when did "retarded" become insulting? If someone is "intellectually disabled" are they not "retarded"? I would not call a Mute person "Audibly disabled" or a deaf person "hearing challenged".
They are deaf, mute, and retarded respectively.
Just as I am white. Just as my neighbor is black. He is not "african american" to me any more than i am "Czech-Fench-Native-germanic-jewish American" to him.
Yin

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We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

If someone is an anglo are they not "whities"? If someone is Black, are they not "negroes".?

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Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
~Bertrand Russell