I think the thing a lot of people forget, too, is that no one, not anyone reasonable, likes abortion. I’m fervently pro-choice, but I think the best way to combat abortion isn’t with laws, but with sex education and birth control.

Man, babies are tough. Really tough. Even when you really, really want them. God forbid a new mother have a baby with colic, because it’s pretty much what I imagine Hell to be like.

That said, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but I don’t think anyone should be forced into having a child they hadn’t planned for.

On the other hand, I recently played the “unplanned pregnancy or stomach flu?” game, and while the unplanned pregnancy option was scary, I wouldn’t have even considered option B…

Whatever, I’m rambling now, but you can put me in the “not for me, but should be safe & legal” category.

I don’t want to come across as saying something like “all life is sacred,” a sentiment that Mike, above, mocks with a proper amount of snark! In fact, as a follower of Jesus, I believe there are much worse things than death. Nevertheless, my “pro-life” position is founded on the idea that (1) all life is a gift from God, and therefore deserving of respect, dignity and consideration (so in the abortion debate, both mother and unborn child) and (2) a hope that life human life does indeed begin before birth.

i don’t like to think about it from a moral perspective, because i think there are convincing arguments on both sides of the issue. so i’d say i’m a pragmatic abortionist, in the sense that, uh, there are too many people in the world.

Think about that for a second. Look at 5 Sophomores in college and chances are 2 of them have been pregnant in their lives.

Another fun fact: After abortion was made legal, the birth rate fell furthest among females below the poverty line, but remained steady among females of the upper classes. Wonder why?

Say what you will, but to paraphrase Ryan Cordle above: if you want to consider yourself pro-life, you must remember that your responsibilities for these children does not stop at birth. It’s only just begun.

Don’t complain about welfare, health care, education, etc., if you want to cosider yourself pro-life.

Christians, in general, make the mistake of talking about abortion in terms of “rights.” I think the correct way for Christians to dialogue about abortion is to stop talking about “rights” and talk about responsibilities. Unfortunately, for many evangelical Christians this talk can go no further than “you got pregnant, you deal with the consequences.” This, however, is contrary to what we believe about Jesus, who believed that women and children must come first. Any honest reading of the Bible will lead one to believe that God cares about “outsiders” more than self-righteous types, which most evangelicals tend to be.

Therefore, I think the correct question for the Church to ask at this point is not, “How can we end abortion” but “how can we take responsibility for pregnant women and their (unborn) and born children?” The church must start legitimately letting women know that their health care and their children will be financially and emotionally supported. Until that becomes a reality, then I think we should consider ourselves hypocrites.

Sorry for the sermonizing, I’m not making an attempt to proselytize, just to communicate why as a Christian, I am frustrated with the “abortion conversation” as well. We could talk about “life beginning” issues and such, but as we all know that goes no where…

One day, when I was about 9 or 10, I saw a word in an article that I didn’t recognize: “abortion.” Naturally, I asked my parents (at the dinner table, no less) what it meant.

To their great credit, they told me exactly what it was and the bare bones of Roe v. Wade. They also told me that as Catholic Christians, they believed that abortion was a very grave sin, and that should I ever get pregnant, ANY OTHER OPTION was preferable to an abortion.

However, they also told me the horror stories of women who were killed or rendered infertile by back-alley abortions, and they emphasized to me that even though they don’t believe abortion is moral, they nevertheless believed that the right to a safe, legal one must always exist.

I think the pro-life activists’ time would be much better spent on sex education and rape prevention programs than picketing abortion clinics.

Personally, I support complete reproductive freedom. The ability to control fertility is the linchpin of women’s rights.

And don’t even get me started on parental consent laws. As “common sense” as that sounds to people, parents forcing their daughter to endure a pregnancy against her will is one wretched form of child abuse.

We live in scary, scary times.

Oh, and here’s the “I’m Not Sorry” campaign I was telling you about: http://imnotsorry.net/

Health care bill’s restrictions on abortion need to go
By Janet Stevens / The Bulletin
Published: November 13. 2009

I doubt that the strong restrictions on abortion included in a health care reform bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last weekend will make it through to the final product, whatever that is. At least I hope they won’t. And it’s not that I favor abortion — almost nobody I know actually favors the procedure. Rather, having grown up in a family of women, and living today in a family of women, puts the issue in a different light for me.

While a majority of us in this country still favor a woman’s right to end a pregnancy, should she choose to do so, that favor has been slipping for years, according to statistics from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Today, the country is nearly evenly divided on the topic, and most of us think the fewer women who obtain abortions, the better.

The decline is widespread, across age, religious and ethnic groups, the most recent Pew poll, conducted late this summer, finds. More and more of us favor requiring teens to obtain parents’ consent for the procedure, the poll found, while fewer and fewer of us see the abortion question as a critical one.

I don’t doubt the numbers. Most Americans find the idea of opting to end a pregnancy an appalling one, at least in the abstract. Problem is, the abstract and reality aren’t always in step with one another. I wonder if, when we put such questions as abortion in personal terms, our views change. I suspect that for many of us they do.

Consider this notion, put forth by Third Way, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Third Way argues that no matter what Americans say about abortion, there are enough of them performed in this country that most of us most likely are related to or know someone who has had one. Fully a third of middle-aged adults, Third Way says, has either had an abortion or impregnated a woman whose pregnancy ended in abortion.

Nor is abortion the birth control of choice for teens, another popular misconception. As the Alan Guttmacher Institute reports, while over half of abortions in this country are obtained by women 25 or younger, most of those are older than 20 and already have children at home. And most used some form of birth control in the month they got pregnant. Moreover, parental notification for teens may already be a reality, law or no. Some experts suggest that most girls under the age of 18 have abortions at their parents’ insistence.

Again, those are numbers. Attach them to a face and they become something far more personal.

I know one young woman who fits the statistics perfectly. The divorced mother of two, she found herself pregnant some time ago and when she told her boyfriend, he split. Already struggling to make ends meet, she couldn’t see a way to support a third child and she terminated the pregnancy. Her decision was not made lightly — far from it — and she agonized about it for months afterward, if not years. I find it impossible to condemn her decision, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have made the same one under similar circumstances.

I would never suggest that a woman undergo an abortion unless she chooses to do so. At the same time, the House health reform bill would prevent my health insurance provider from covering my abortion if that provider received federal subsidy money for any of its clients, even if I were not among the subsidized group.

If Americans already worry about a health care system that gives the advantage to those who can afford it, shouldn’t we worry even more when that economic difference actually is written into law? I think so. Abortion remains a legal procedure in this country, and for Congress to decide to make it available only to the wealthy is just wrong.

Pro life folks complain about having to pay more taxes for programs like welfare and medicaid but don’t want abortions. Doesn’t make sense to me.

But where does the pro life insanity end?
Just humans or are animals entitled?

What’s next no Veal? No Milk? We get cows preggers just for that sweet meat and milk is that right?

I draw the line at No scrambled eggs!
Hell No, my Large Grade A eggs aren’t hatching unless it’s in my belly folks, with a side of Swine.