Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (88285)	11/8/2004 9:34:41 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 108807

I am opposed to late abortion and am opposed to state-enforced gestation by American women of either zygotes or embryos. AMEN!!!!! "Saving" fertilized ova that would otherwise naturally abort? The scientific opinion seems to be that the body recognizes that something is WRONG with them and stops them from fully developing. A line HAS to be drawn somewhere. It may be at conception if you're anti-abortion. If you're extremely pro, it could be 1 second before, but it has to be drawn. Anywhere you draw it, on any basis- -time, development, the existence of a cell with full chromosome count- -will be arbitrary. Drawing it at 0 months is no less arbitrary than drawing it at 3 or 6. What the anti-abortion forces LOVE to forget is that there was a real reason Roe v. Wade was decided the way it was. Abortions were hardly nonexistent before that; they were just mostly unsafe unless you had plenty of money or a very friendly doctor who would disguise it under some other diagnosis. Those back alley abortions cost thousands of lives every year. The were like surgery before Pasteur introduced antisepsis. The bodies of those dead women is what Roe v. Wade is built on. But claiming that outlawing abortions will cost no lives is BS. It did before and it will again.

To: E who wrote (88285)	11/8/2004 10:18:16 PM
From: Sidney Reilly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I think the big question is not the physical development of an embryo at the time of an abortion. The question is when did the eternal soul enter the new person. And if that soul is there when an abortion occurs then a living human being has died. The soul still lives on but has been robbed of it's once only chance at a physical life and the development and experience that comes with life. An acorn never has a soul. There's no comparison there.

To: E who wrote (88285)	11/11/2004 12:08:18 AM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

I didn't mean to offend you. Please excuse me if I did. I tend to assume everyone at SI is male unless their alias clearly indicates that they are women, or I know them personally as women. You said you didn't want to talk about abortion anymore and that is fine, you don't need to respond, but I did want to clarify a couple of things I said. First, my sister-in-law had an abortion as a teenager and then ended up marrying the father of the aborted (whatever you want to call it, fetus, baby, etc.) when she was a couple of years older, and went on to have two more children. She really had no idea of all the implications of what she was doing when she had the abortion. It wasn't until she carried a child to term that she realized really clearly that she had killed her own baby the first time. Twenty-five years later this still has a strong impact on her. So when I say that I think there should be very good pre-abortion counseling and that girls/women should see a film about the reality of what a fetus looks like and what the abortion experience is, it is based on my sister-in-law's experience. No, I don't think rape victims should be subjected to a film; their abortions are the result of horrible trauma. But what I am trying to imagine is a pre-abortion series of educational events and counseling so that girls/women who think they want to have elective abortions can make a more informed decision, and possibly avoid a lot of heartache. I think they should be aware that this is a decision that may cause incredible emotional pain later. My sister-in-law always gets really sad around the time of what would have been that first baby's birthday. At the same time, I support really high quality sex education for all children and readily available birth control. The rightwing idea of not teaching children about sex, not providing birth control, and hoping everyone will just say no strikes me as very head-in-the-sand unrealistic. Regarding the pain a fetus feels, my understanding is that a two-month fetus does indeed feel pain and incredible fear and makes evasive movements to avoid the abortionist's equipment. I am not exactly sure of what you were saying there. Whenever there is new technology to view fetal activities and behaviors, it is increasingly clear that this is a sensitive and aware tiny being. I totally realize that giving women control of their bodies is extremely important in improving women's lives. In the third world, where birth control is available, women choose it. Women who have fewer children can educate and nurture them more effectively. At the same time, it seems like in western societies where there are millions of non-births of babies who were aborted, the birth rates are dropping so much that people are not even reproducing themselves. Europe and Japan in particular are dealing with this problem. At the same time, though, women are jumping through hoops to have babies relatively late in their reproductive lives using every kind of modern fertility technology, with all its inherent risks. It seems like it would make more sense if there were fewer abortions and more adoptions.