[pritchke]

Originally posted by Barry the Sprout: quote: Originally posted by pritchke: Im so tired of people bringing "coat hanger" abortions into this frey. This is not the year 1970 where birth control was not so advanced. There is the pill, condoms, IUD's, Norplant, Spermacidal foams and jellies, etc today. If you dont want to have a baby, use birth control, (use 2 or even 3 different types at the same time if you really dont want a baby) or better yet, dont have sex. (because anyone with more than a 5th grade education knows that everytime you have sex, there is a possibility of the woman getting pregnant) After all, nobody ever died from lack of sex, but thousands of children are dying every year because of abortion. What I find truly amazing is that we have, in this day and age, denegrated to the level that the only thing that makes a person a baby or a "fetus" is its mothers opinion. Wasn't there a time when black people were not people, women and live children were considered property by their husbands/fathers? Dogs and cats and cattle are given more respect than unborn babies. Yes this is truly amazing.

You are absolutely right in some ways - birth control is readily available, so why do lots of women (and it is lots, not just a few) want to be able to get abortions? Why are women pregnant when they don't want to be pregnant? Your paragraph about women being stupid was obviously a joke, but that seems to be the mainstream view of why women get pregnant when they don't want to be - they were too stupid to do anything about it. Well, as I'm sure most of us are aware it takes two people to make a baby and thats hardly ever mentioned. Women don't have babies they don't want because they're too stupid to work out what you do with a contraceptive pill, but because for some reason they had unprotected sex with some guy and now, presumably, regret that.

So what kind of society are we living in when thousands of women every year get pregnant because their other half lied to them, or misled them, or simply pressured them in order to get them to have unprotected sex, yet once they try to remedy that situation they're told its their fault in the first place! That they shouldn't have been so stupid. Lets not kid ourselves, abortion is as much an issue of liberation for women as is equal pay and hiring conditions. It is a clear case of the mainstream society taking a particular problem thats at the very least 50% due to men (and probably quite a lot more - lets face it) and proclaim that women can deal with the consequences. Even those pro-choice seem to often portray it as if its granting a boon to the women in question, as if its a method of curbing poverty somehow, when in fact its often due to the poverty and discrimination that women want to get the abortion anyway. [/QUOTE]While you are correct that it is 50% the guys fault as well. The women get most of the perks from having a baby and basically all the say. Lets face it the guy has no say over if he can afford the kid or not. He can't say I want an abortion yet he will end up paying a good bit in child support to that woman if she has the kid (usually a good bit more than will take care of the kid depending on salary). He can't say don't have an abortion I will take and raise the kid. In this situation would the woman have to pay child support? The real issue is partial-birth abortion as they had plenty of time to make a decision before this stage.

[ 04-27-2004, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]