Suppose your parents hadn't planned on having you when they did, lots of people began as surprises. Would you rather your mother had chosen to abort you?
I didn't think so.
Would you rather your mother had chosen to abort you? This is a meaningless question, to me, as it didn't - and therefore couldn't - happen.
I think that this a broader issue than "don't vote for Obama". If you check the thread
Pregnancy Pact ~ What utter stupidity!, you will note that one of the concerns in this country is the lack of proper education for teens (the group most at risk for abortion) about contraception - often because their parents don't want them taught (for whatever reason) and abortion is the only option they have left, or feel they have left.
There are people and organizations that go out of their way to prevent abortions - which is fine,
if, and only
if, they are going to raise the resultant child from birth through college; otherwise, they have no business interfering in the life of the mother or the child. There are also a wide range of reason why a pregnant woman might not be able - or willing - to have an abortion during the first trimester. Don't get me wrong - I find the use of abortion as a replacement for contraception to be morally wrong, as I see a significant difference between
preventing conception and
ending it once it has occurred - but lots of people don't.
Yes, there are lots of people who would love to adopt those aborted babies - and it would be great if all the pregnant women who didn't want their children took proper care of themselves, carried the baby to term, and then gave the unwanted child up for adoption - but that's not going to happen, at least not the way things are going now.
For most women, having an abortion is not an easy choice, and it may take a while for it to sink in - thus, the need for 2nd trimester abortions. I'm not saying it's right - at least, it wouldn't be for me - but at the same time,
it's not my life. Were I, for some reason, to find myself pregnant with an unwanted child, I would complete the the pregnancy and give the child up for adoption - but many women cannot do that, for reasons that are as widely variant as the women themselves.
And honestly - I've seen some of the kids who were preterm births (not from late term abortions) - and while some are okay, many have significant problems - including one who was born at the edge of viability; her skull never formed (so when she moved her head, you could see her brain slosh inside her scalp), she "ate" through a permanent stomach tube, she had a permanent tracheotomy, she couldn't talk, couldn't walk, didn't have the motor control to learn to sign; she lived in her wheelchair at school. After a life of pain and multiple surgeries, she died of pneumonia at the age of 9.
And then I knew another girl - not preterm - who was diagnosed with a genetic illness after her birth. It was a regressive developmental disease (I've forgotten the name); she peaked intellectually at 2 (when she could feed herself with a spoon), then started to lose skills - by the time I knew her, she was 10, and had lost the ability to feed herself, had never been toilet trained, was losing the ability to walk, and was facing a lifetime as an adult-sized infant... her mother became pregnant again, and the same genetic defect was found in the new fetus, but not until nearly the end of the 2nd trimester; mom chose to have an abortion, and I do not fault her for it - although the child
could have been viable, and could have lived as its sister "lived" - but for what purpose? To be a vegetable most of its life?
Do I agree, in general, with abortions performed when the fetus is potentially "viable"? Not in general... but neither will I support legislation that limits a woman's right to choose.
