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Originally Posted by PhoenixAlive
Pregnancy is 9 months. Women who are raped suffer for a lot longer than that anyways. After your body is violated, nothing is ever the same again. Without exception, women who are raped NEED to be in psychotherapy for years after a rape, whether or not they want to be, because of the heightened suicide rate of raped women.
No-one said that a woman's life is worth less than a fetus's, and if a woman is impregnated by a rapist, her pregnancy should be monitored not only by an obstetrician, but by a therapist or psychologist as well. If it is found that the woman is seriously suicidal due to the rape and/or pregnancy, then it should be terminated. Although a tragedy, it is better that one life end than two.
Otherwise, yes. I condone a raped woman completing the pregnancy. 9 months is such a short time to give in order to allow a baby to grow to have the chance at a full life.
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I know that women who are raped require years of psychotherapy etc. My point was that they go through heaps of physical and emotional trauma based on one night. So making them go through an additional 9 months of having to relive that and remember that every time you think about the baby you are carrying would make it so much worse. Don't you think that having a constant physical reminder would make it impossible to recover? Therefore setting back their recovery time. I'm not saying that is true of all women who get pregnant via rape; I admire those who are willing to carry through with the pregnancy regardless. But I certainly wouldn't think badly of those who didn't want to and I wouldn't force that emotional suffering on them.
Also, what if the woman's rapist is still around? And she knows that he will get violent when he finds out that she is pregnant? Ignoring the "she should report him etc.", since some girls aren't willing to do that and it doesn't always result in a conviction, is abortion okay then? Or would you rather that she risk getting beaten and miscarrying anyway?
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Originally Posted by PhoenixAlive
I fully condone medically necessary abortions. Again, it is better for one to die than two. I'm sure that most of the pro-lifers on this site would agree with me. However, if there was a chance that my baby would live, even if I died, I would want the doctors to save her. She was everything to me, even before she was born, and I can't stand the idea of her not being in this world. Of course, in this circumstance, I would never force my feelings on another mother.
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Okay. But many of the other pro-lifers here continue to say that abortion is murder. That means, based on their statements, that they believe a woman is committing murder when she has a medically necessary abortion. And making abortion illegal would be killing women who need it. I brought up the point because a lot of pro-lifers contradict themselves, particularly on this point.
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Originally Posted by PhoenixAlive
The adoption issue is a whole other debate. I myself was adopted at the age of 1 and raised by a Roman Catholic Priest and his sister. I don't harbor any ill feelings towards my biological parents. I love my family, and I feel special because I was chosen to be a part of it. Because my parents had to work so hard to get me, they networked with several other families who adopted children. I don't know a single one of them who feels unloved or unwanted. I think that these feelings are projected by non-adopted people and it is a media-driven view of adoption fostered by Orphan Annie and such characters.
There is a shortage of adoptable babies in Canada and the USA at the moment, which is why anyone who wishes to adopt has to consider adopting internationally. More adoptable children here at home would make life easier for the millions of willing parents who are unable to conceive a child.
I posted in a previous abortion debate the statistics of the foster home system and how it works, referenced from a government website. I don't know how to retrieve my post, so I'll just summarize that most children who enter the foster care system also leave it within one year. Most children in the foster care system are in fact fostered by a family member, and not some group home institution.
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But that is only your experience. I've seen many others on
TH who say that they feel like they don't belong and don't truly know who they are because they don't know who their birth parents are.
And I think adoption could be good for some people, depending on the circumstances. If a teenager, like 17 or 18, got pregnant and could carry through with the pregnancy and put the baby up for adoption, I think that would be great. But I would never force anyone to go through with the pregnancy if they felt like they couldn't. Some people know that if they went through with the pregnancy, they would want to keep the baby, and wouldn't be able to support it properly. Having an abortion instead means that that child doesn't have to grow up below the poverty line.
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Originally Posted by PhoenixAlive
You say that by asking that women not terminate their pregnancies to save the life of the unborn baby they carry we "want to take a woman's life away at the same time", I don't believe that anyone ever said that. Pregnancy does not cause a woman to die, in most cases. And as I said before, I condone medically necessary abortions. Most women can go about their lives during pregnancy, interrupted only by the occasional doctor's appointment. So I really don't see your point here.
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(Note: what I say here mostly relates to women who are raped or have their pregnancy "forced" on them in some way)
I understand "life" as more than just the physical act of existing. And women can not just "go about their lives" while they are pregnant. I posted about this earlier. Morning sickness can be so bad that women have to skip work altogether. If they don't have the support of the father, they risk financial troubles, losing their job, having to give up their social lives for a child that they didn't want. If they were raped and their husband/boyfriend can't deal with their partner carrying someone else's child, then they can lose their partner. I already mentioned the emotional trauma for women who were raped. Young girls who get pregnant through lack of sex education (which isn't their fault, btw) can get kicked out of home.