Hoot, you have the sensibility of a rational person and I say bravo, because you can see the resultant consequences of making abortion illegal. There is no reasonable person who feels abortion is a good thing. It is always a tragedy when people are very often forced into making this decision. It is even a greater tragedy when the young, the poor, the raped or abused frightened girl would be forced to self induce, or seek the assistance of a butcher. We all agree it is terrible.
The consequences of making abortion illegal would be monumental. Every year, a million and a half children would live to be born and take their rightful place among us.
If everyone agrees, as you do, that abortion is a bad thing, then it must be time foe a change, don't you think?
No one is 'forced'. It is purely voluntary. The incidence of pregnancy arising from rape, as with any single sexual encounter, is extremely limited. Also, the routine medical treatment for rape victims, generally dilation and curetage, while not specifically intended to induce an abortion because it is not determined whether the victim is actually pregnant, will, nevertheless, result in unknowingly terminating a pregnancy if, in fact, one may exist.
Is being young or poor sufficient reason to take a human life?
Pac, I think your suggestions for helping prevent un-wanted pregnancies deserves merit, but I didn't see a plan for preventing rape and abuse. I hope you are not suggesting that molested child should be forced to endure a pregnancy and delivery? She wasn't tormented, violated and psychologically harmed enough? I sense your traditional conservative leaning, but are you rational enough to include in your programs of prevention, free access to birth control for these young people, or does that violate some moral code? Wouldn't free access to contraception also help lower the number of abortions, but is also something that is fought tooth and nail to prevent,in the conservative camp?
In the grand scheme of things, there will always be child molestation; but it does not occur with any frequency that compares to the million and a half children who are killed in the womb every year.
With respect to 'prevention', as I wrote earlier, I long for the days when a father, on being introduced, for the first time, to his daughter's date, took the young man aside, put his arm around the fellow's shoulder and explained the consequences, should the daughter be violated.
At the same time, the mother was helping the daughter with her coat, she reminded her that only two types of woman removed their hats or their lingerie while on a date; sluts and hookers. The difference depended on whether a fee was involved.
But, of course 'the god of political correctness', so worshipped these days, precludes any notion of personal responsibility, doesn't it?
Lastly, Fant, you were kind enough to come up with the number of abortions (you didn't show the source however) but I haven't seen any statistics on the number of babies adopted by you anti-abortion activists? Since we discussed this earlier, have you stepped up to the plate yet and taken a young scared girl under your protection? Paid for her medical care? Agreed to raise her child as your own? Pay for their food, housing and education etc? Still distancing yourself from the solution?? According to your plan (and lack of personal commitment), there would have been over 1.7 million unwanted babies in institutional care since 1990. It's neat. It's clean. You don't have to see them or deal with them. You don't have to hear them when they cry at night. You don't have to deal with their psychological problems when they question why their Mom didn't want them and that none of those nice anti-abortion people wanted them either... so dig into your library of questionable and definitively biased "facts" and get us the number of your camp who have taken the direct responsibility to resolve this problem. And please don't bore us with the indirect, institutional, somebody else will take care of the problem drool. What are YOU doing other than BLOVIATING on the subject... geez, I wonder how many children O'Reilly, Limbaugh or Coombs have adopted?????????? I can give you that number...
NONE
All of the information on numbers can be easily confirmed by a little surfing. Many of them come from the website of the Centers for Disease Control, a government organization that furnishes all kinds of useful information. You may wish to spend a little time there to fill in the gaps.
What you refuse to accept is the fact that the vast majority of abortions are performed, not on the poor, the disadvantaged, the young, the raped, and the like. A greatly disproportionate number of abortions are performed on well to do women who decide that the pregnancy has occurred at an opportune time. Having a child would interfere with some facet of their life. There are those, too, who wish to genetically engineer their family so as to have a particular mix of boys and/or girls. Too bad for whoever shows up out of the planned order.
I like the way you ask a question and then instruct me on your idea of the correct way for me to answer it. It reveals much about the way you fear the truth.
Irrespective of the occasional local horror story which the socialist-lib-Dems media apologists blast across the country, imbuing it with the stature of a national disaster, unwanted children are still better off alive, rather than dead, aren't they?
I can't prevent your blatant mockery. However, the advocacy of those folks, the taxes they pay,and their support of charities are of far greater value than adopting a child, or two.