Question

I need help on an assignment I'm doing! I need opinions on abortion. Do you consider wrong or not? Why? I appreciate as much help as I can get.

Answer 1

Oh wow, well is this for a research paper kind of thing on controversial topics, but I personally consider it wrong, I'll explain it later, because I'm a bit busy right now.

Answer 2

I've researched so much and I've got a lot reasons about it listed down. But I'm still looking for more opinions and getting some from here really helps. thanks batman, you can explain whenever you can[:

Answer 3

i think abortion is wrong once the baby develops a heart beat. (which is around 18 days when the woman is late for her period) if you get an abortion before the baby has a heart beat then i guess its fine but once the baby has a heart beat and you get an abortion then that's basically (in my terms) considered murder. because if you were to kill a human then that would be called murder and so would abortion.

Answer 4

Great reason! thanks for the opinion [:

Answer 5

your welcome! i'm always glad to help and give my opinions. let me know if you need anything else on any other topic! :)

Answer 6

Same thing for me, having an abortion is just like murder. Why would you "kill" a baby, you could at least have the baby, and give it up for adoption.

Answer 7

Hay fan me

Answer 8

i think its ok, its the person choice

Answer 9

I think there is nothing ethically wrong with having an abortion.

In the first place be careful with your words. A pregnant woman does not have a "baby" inside her. She has a "foetus" inside her. A 'baby' is an independently living, thinking, feeling, sentient human being with all the rights accorded to a human. Whereas a 'foetus' is a collection of cells and tissues with no thoughts, no feelings, no emotions and no rights.

By contrast a woman is a human being. She has every right to manage what happens to and inside her own body (as do men, that is a right extended to all human beings). Spending the better part of a year growing a 10 lb human inside one and pushing it out in an extremely painful and difficult process, and is one of the more significant processes that can occur in a human body. A pregnancy is not a question of "Oh just have a baby, no pain, no inconvenience, no danger." Pregnancies and complications thereof result in death. Read up on disseminated intravascular coagulation, read up on preecclampsia. For that matter consider the emotional work and duress of bearing a child, even if it is given for adoption (for that matter consider the emotional duress and potential damage of giving a child up for adoption).

Beyond that there are many social reasons why abortions are not only ethically right but a very, very good idea.

Women often have variable or little control over their sexual lives. Sometimes that is physical control, sometimes it is emotional control (the same can be said of men, I don't subscribe to the childishly naive and simplistic view of sex where men suggest it and women say yes/no on whether it happens). Women's access to birth control depends largely on socioeconomic status, where they live, all sorts of things beyond their control and often their means too. Not all women can take birth control for biologic reasons. And sex is not ethically bad or wrong, or an impulse that should be buried or suppressed. The idea that an unwanted pregnancy is the result of a failure of self control or self discipline or misbehaviour on a woman's behalf (or a man's) is also childishly naive and simplistic.

Answer 10

I think its alright because why would you bring a kid to the world if you cant really take care of it or if you arent ready. You could put them up for adoption but i think theyd grow up thinking "Why didnt my mom want me?"

Answer 11

In certain situations abortion doesn't appear as immoral or unethical while in other situation can be so. For example, a girl gets raped and now pregnant trying to abort her child as an example of a situation where abortion is necessary and absolutely needed. A situation where abortion would be light-minded is where a girl gets pregnant, she and her partner break up and she decides to abort the child. Also in my personal opinion I believe abortion where it indicate an appropriate modesty or humility is when you decide ahead of time if you want your child or not and not wait. A situation where it will be callous to abort, is after the 3 months of pregnancy when the heartbeat starts in the fetus and in my opinion, a fetus is considered alive once its heartbeats starts, because I believe the heartbeat indicates being alive and conscious—we humans are alive when our heart beats, once its stops we are considered dead.

Answer 12

i think it should be legal, if a woman does not want to carry a human inside her she should have a choice,it is her body, what if she was rapped by her dad, brother,stranger,etc??

Answer 13

I agree with blues and zale.

Also think about this:
A lot of people have genetic diseases that can be inherited by their offspring. Of course you'd rather not have a mentally/physically disabled child or a child with some kinda condition. It's easy nowadays to test if you're child will have such a genetic defects long before it's born. That's a very valid reason to abort a child in my opinion.

Answer 14

Hi,

My Fiancee is pregnant with our daughter. Of course this is what came up, "should we keep it?"

I feel a lot of people on here are teenagers, as am I, but for the most part, none of you guys have been faced with such a decision. It is literally the hardest thing I've ever been asked. It's a choice between killing your unborn child or not.

If you have sex, and you both consent, and that sex is knowingly unprotected, then you should be mature and responsible enough to take the repercussions. If it was an accident - sure, considerable.

Personally, I would never kill my child, and agreed not to do so. The child is not only the mother's - while legally it may be recognized as her body, it's an immature way to think about something. e.g., "It's mine so I can do what I want!"

-- No, dear, it's "ours."

There are some exceptions. e.g., rape, incest, genetic mutations, and disabilities.

My Fiancee developed a nasty habit of taking oxycodone. Sure, this will effect the child, but I still love her.

In the end, it's all subjective and there is no solid solution.

Answer 15

Also, to comment on @blues , actually, fetuses do feel pain. By 3 weeks the baby's basic structure is developed, and they are essentially a ball of nerves. They have skin, fingernails, a brain, eyes, and so forth.

You can get an abortion of to 23 weeks, or a bit over 5 months. There is a video on LiveLeak of an abortion viewed via Ultra Sound. The video shows the baby pushing away from the vacuum, trying to escape it's death. Of course, it's inevitably torn apart.

“At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG).”
— Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist, University of Toronto

• An unborn baby at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain. … Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.”
— Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery, Case Western University

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@blues , you also mention that fetuses aren't "babies" as they have no rights. And I quote, " A 'baby' is an independently living, thinking, feeling, sentient human being with all the rights accorded to a human. Whereas a 'foetus' is a collection of cells and tissues with no thoughts, no feelings, no emotions and no rights."

But scientific aforementioned data contradicts that. A fetus is recognizable animal to it's own species. The fetal stage usually starts at 9 weeks and goes to 38/42 weeks. This is what we call a "fetus."

You also mentioned in your argument how fetuses have no human rights, but that's not true either. Children after 23 weeks are considered, well, children. You cannot abort them, doing so will get you charged with murder of the first degree. Therefore, is it okay to abort a child at 23 weeks exactly, but not 23 weeks + 1 day?

The argument you're presenting seems to be based off of law and incorrect sciences.

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Yes, socioeconomic can be an issue. But condoms are relatively cheap. I can buy a 24 pack for 10 dollars at Wal-Mart. Only in cases of poverty would that argument be solid. Sure, maybe in parts of South Africa or people who are extremely poor/homeless. They can't afford these things, right? But if they're so poor, they won't have insurance and will have to pay for the abortion themselves.

In some cases, the N.H.S will pay for your abortions, but most private clinics will require some type of insurance, regardless (for safety reasons). A sixteen year old will need be have insurance of her parents, and an adult will need her own insurance; even though the N.H.S will cover it. It's like driving a car - sure, you may not get in any accidents, but you still need insurance in case something happens.

N.H.S Website ( http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Abortion/Pages/Introduction.aspx )

Answer 16

I think it's wrong...it's murder. Once the child is in there, it's alive... regardless of how long it's been there. Just think about if that aborted child had been you.

Answer 17

Thank you all for your positive opinions! this will sure help me a lot. All the facts, proofs and opinions will help greatly! Love what @blues @zale and @compassionate stated and truly agree with all of you.

Answer 18

Compassionate, you last bought birth control pills when? They run around $50 per month USD, excluding the doctors appointments and exams necessary to get prescriptions for said pills. Actively practicing birth control that women can practice costs her about $1000 per year. Which is a significant block of money even to well paid professional women or those with health insurance - and the women and girls who are unable to afford a child are the same ones who are unable to afford birth control.

Yes, condoms are much cheaper. But that places the responsibility for practicing birth control on men - even if women buy the condoms, it places the onus for using it on the man. Hmm. With no disparagement on you or men as individuals who will, at that particular moment, stop if she asks him to stop (most are extremely unwilling to do so) - that places the responsibility for practicing birth control on the men who are least responsible for its physical, emotional and social consequences. And places women in an incredibly physically, emotionally and socially vulnerable position.

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Yes, foetuses have developing nervous systems.

But mere presence of a nervous system (even a fully developed one) does not render an organism physically, emotionally or consciously sentient, certainly not to the standards that make it eligible for legal rights. Cnidarians, which are the lowest order of animal life that most biologists agree merit the classification 'animals' (we are undecided on sponges), have well developed "nerve nets" and are able to sense and actively respond to physical stimuli (you could argue that they are a "ball of nerves" supported by mesenchymal tissue as easily as you could say that of foetus) - in other words, prod a jelly fish and it will sense pain and actively avoid it. Planarians (the next animal up the evolutionary ladder) actually have nerve cells organised into ganglia (!!!) which are possibly the evolutionary precursor of brains, are able to tell light from dark and coordinate their movements accordingly.

As for EEGs being indicative of mental activity - you should read a paper by Bennet, et al. published last year called, "Neural correlates of inter-species perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparison correction." It won an Ignobel prize. They hooked an EEG up to a dead fish (literally, a dead fish) and demonstrated brain activity in it.

I'm not going to argue about the legal status of abortion up to 23 weeks, but no abortion after 23 weeks + 1 day. That is a crude arbitrary binary threshold imposed on a subtle continuous biologic process - in an attempt (and I subjectively judge that attempt an unsatisfactory failure) to impose some legal order on an emotionally charged social issue.

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Sex is not in any way a failure of responsibility. It's not a case of "You were a bad girl, you misbehaved, you should pay for your irresponsibility by facing the consequences." In the days before abortions were legal, far and away the highest mortality rates from illegal abortions were not among teenagers or unmarried but sexually active women - they were among married mothers for whom marriage made it emotionally and socially harder to opt out of unwanted sex, who already had children and could not cope financially or emotionally with another.

An unwanted pregnancy is a bad situation. There is no way out of it that won't cause a lot of pain to all involved parties. So women should have the right to take responsibility for that situation and resolve it in whatever way they feels will minimise the short and long term pain to everyone involved. If that 'least pain' solution is the physical and emotional pain incurred by the mother, her family and the foetus in an abortion, that option should be open to her in an accessible and safe way. No one has any right to impinge on that choice.

Answer 19

All animals have brain activity, dear. The brain responds to stimuli - that's what it does. As long as there is energy in the brain it will continue to run some type of action. Certainly this fish wasn't dead for long. Your body does a lot of stuff after you die, like release tension in your stomach, your eyes will flicker, your body will continue to digest food and bacteria will produce gases on your stomach.

Does that mean we can disregard dead human beings as worthless? Sure. It would be disrespectful, and dismembering a dead human would get you charged with inhumane disposal of a body. Also, if you have a fetus that's only a few weeks old, you can get charged if you dispose of it improperly.

Also, abortions are only acceptable in certain situations. Did you know you can go to jail for a botched abortion? You can also go to jail for killing your baby by doing drugs. Only a certified doctor may carry out an abortion. The same way only a certified executioner can execute criminals.

It's only when you receive an official abortion do certain rights get revoked from the fetus.

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You put a lot of feminist agenda on women. Their body, their choice, right? A man's body, his choice, right? When two independent beings engage in an activity together, they should be commune. Don't want a child? Use birth control. Don't have money? Buy condoms. Completely broke? Health clinics give away free condoms and even birth control in some situations.

You say women are susceptible to human desires, "And places women in an incredibly physically, emotionally and socially vulnerable position." You also said that men likely won't stop once they engage in these behaviors with women. Well, who's fault is that? If you get with a bad person who doesn't respect you, and if you say stop (E.g., it's not consensual) then it's rape. So that's a rape baby and =/= the lack of contraceptives.

The consequences and decisions should fall on both the husband and wife, or the couple in question. I don't believe in basing my morality around law. However, you say this is crude. So when should a woman not be able to get an abortion? Is 37 weeks enough? Why not just kill your child at any time in their childhood if you don't like them?

Protip: Your babies body, from the ending of 40 weeks up-until a few months after birth is virtually the same. Yup.

So, that baby at 40 weeks is the same, physically, mentally and biologically as a 3-month old child. So what exactly is the difference? Both babies have no social implications, no duties, no responsibilities. They both pay no taxes or do anything productive financially, economically, politically or serve any other subdivision.