Don't blame me but in my opinion abortion is still murder
Don't...blame? Maybe don't
flame is appropriate, but if you're stating an opinion, you're stating an opinion
All the posts on this page are actually quite valid
Perhaps it's possible to take the cross-section of them and come up with a more complete picture!
For legal abortion:
* Not allowing it is the witholding of a woman's right.
* One can't generally attribute responsibility to the woman.
* Allowing abortion may result in a higher quality of life for all parties and reduce suffering on the part of the '
ossible child'.
Against legal abortion:
* As development is a continuous process, we can't well differentiate between a "fetus" and a "living being" as our definition of living being is somewhat unclear. Therefore we will have to make an unpleasant arbitrary distinction or worse, hold a fuzzy one as to who to let live and who to let die. This is inconsistent with murder legislation. Or, you could say it's inconsistent with God's will, but I don't use that perspective.
* Legalised abortion may send the wrong messages to people and result in a greater sexual irresponsibility.
* Abortion carries significant health risks and implications to the carrier of the fetus.
Rebuttal to the against position:
* This ignores the fact that we cannot run properly on strict guidelines without violating broader principles.
* Legalising abortion is not the end of the story. As knight_34 points out, preventing unwanted pregnancies is an extremely important step, but this in fact then contradicts the rationale of the 2nd against point.
* Sometimes pregnancies themselves are much more dangerous and require some serious intervention that involves termination.
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So in all, from the health-professional perspective, here are my recommendations to cover all cases:
1) Keep abortion legal. Like drugs, making it illegal will only divert trackable cases to backstreet operations or other "alternative" methods (including self-harm, alcoholism and suicide), which constitutes a greater risk.
2) Ensure that the risks are assessed on a case-by-case basis. We already do this, and it appears to be the best method for ensuring some kind of maximal benefit in terms of preserving as many lives as possible (the life of the unborn child cannot be placed above the life of the mother, or even both of them, as some anti-abortion stances dictate).
3) Education on safe sexual practices. This is oh-so-important and oh-so-neglected, particularly because many factions like to preach abstinence, either because of conservative sensibilities, conservative interpretation of theology, or both.
I'd just like to take a moment to tell you that
this is really shortsighted. Fact of the matter is that the median age of incidence of sexual intercouse with somebody else is somewhere between 12-14. Want to deny it? Don't. Fact of the matter is that whether you believe it or not (or do it or not
adolescents will gain interest and most will start doing it and not know what they're even doing if nobody tells them.
Sexual education has lapsed far and wide, especially in schools and in terms of the public, popular media. The response to the apparent sexualisation of popular media has been the call to suppress it, but again, this is moving in the wrong direction. If you want prevention, don't try to herd people by force as that's just too difficult, empower them to exercise that control they need, and grant them awareness!
That's the kind of prevention that we should be working on. If humans are so willing to consider themselves enlightened then they ought to at least consider using the methods that they call upon to label themselves such.
