to think America is a frightening place to be a woman right now?

[BornSicky]

Pregnant women facing murder charges

This is bullying at a nightmarish level.

I find it foul and despicable that women are being villified in such a way. How did the Christian right-wing become so powerful?

Truly, truly scary.

How can these bad laws (including the new "inspections" (read closures) of abortion clinics in Kansas) come to be passed? How can they be stopped?

I wouldn't put a time limit on it CheerfulYank. There needs to be a defined time where life begins and THAT is the real crux of the argument. I put it at viability outside the womb which could be different for the individuals involved. I do NOT put it at conception.

i am po abortion. i have to say i only really see a baby as a baby once its been born. a young prem baby is not viable unless it is helped out with doctors. for that reason the mothers life and choices are above that of an unborn child. to me anyway

christine

"You can't give foetuses equal rights to women from the moment of conception because if that were the case every woman of childbearing age would have to face a monthly medical examination and interrogation nd possible murder charge ... Implanted embryos often fade away and die before the woman in whose womb they are has even had time to consider she's a few days late..."

In these cases the woman isn't choosing to end the foetus' life. To me that is a completely different situation and I don't see how that prevents thinking of the foetus as an equal life.

"Once it is born then it is alive, until then it's not much better than a parasite."

So a baby born at 37 weeks is alive but the one that stays there until 40 weeks or beyond is not?

Knitted,

Follow your argument through then. Do doctors have a right to not support a young prem baby in the same way as a mother has a right to terminate? And, in what sense is a healthy newborn "viable" without support of either breast milk or scientifically produced formula (hardly natural). Would you support a mother's right to withhold nutrition from a newborn as he was interfering with her rights to get on with her life?

curly - do you not consider parasites alive then? I think you'll find that they are considered living things. Not sure why a foetus doesn't deserve the same recognition at the very least.

Swallowed,

Of course those ventilators work all by themselves and those drip lines are put in by robots. It takes a lot of technical (and loving) care to support young lives in the balance. If we, as a society, viewed premies as subhuman and parasitic financially on society, as you view foetuses as parasitic on women, we would not be living in the kind of society that I would embrace.

Swallowed,

So, do you believe born premature babies to be parasitic on society and unworthy of your tax being spent on them. After all, they cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and thousands of man hours frequently. A simple yes or no will suffice?

Yes, SAF, but I was wondering about fetuses at an age to survive outside their mother's body?

swallowed - because it is more than a parasite - it is a HUMAN foetus. If you accept that it is alive then perhaps you can try to stretch yourself and understand that to some human life is human life regardless of how old that life is or how dependent it is. Newborn babies are dependent on others to survive too. Does that make their life less valuable? I think it opens a can of worms when you start weighing one life against another like that.

"these convictions and this treatment of women is the natural outcome of your well intentioned views being acted upon."

How? Not all countries where abortion is illegal do this.

I understand your point of view bubbley....I just think it's emotional in all the wrong places. You feel for the foetus but not the mother, you seem to have no understanding of what it must be like to have an unwanted pregnancy. You are so blinded by your protection of the foetus that you can't allow the mother's feelings in. Which is pretty much my view but opposite. I cannot allow myself to be duped by the appearance of a foetus and mistaking that for a real baby (which as yet it's not) or it would make terminations much less palatable.

When I had my first TOP I had an internal scan and could see the monitor, I also had to walk into the operating theatre and see the 'instruments' that were going to be used. I was in no doubt that an abortion was the best thing, not getting pg would have been preferable. I was fully informed and convinced that the foetus was not a baby....

And for the comment before that said why can't women aspire to be mothers......that's no aspiration at all. Being a mother doesn't pay for your own life.

bubbleymummy

"Curly - do you not consider parasites alive then? I think you'll find that they are considered living things. Not sure why a foetus doesn't deserve the same recognition at the very least."

Yep. I'll give it the same consideration as tapeworms when they're in my intestines. Seriously, I don't believe it is a life until it is/can be born. That is my opinion. You have yours and I'll accept that. The ISSUE is weather or not someone has the RIGHT to force their views on someone else. If I wanted to live in a society where people are allowed to force the majority of the population to subscribe to their views I would go live with the Taliban.

It is about the FREEDOM to choose. Do you really think you have the right to dictate to others how they should believe? I don't.

Crapola - where have I said I don't feel the mother? I feel for both but I don't think someone's feelings trump someone's life. When do you consider it a 'real' baby then? If you look at a 12 week scan there is no mistaking that it has human features and is not a clump of cells.

It's sad that you think a woman can't be a mother and pay for her own life.

curlyboy - so your cut off is currently 24 weeks then - the age of viability? Do you think a woman has the right to dictate whether another human can live? Clearly you do.

No more so than you think you can dictate your views to the masses. Fascist.
It may be alive but IT IS NOT A LIFE.

Shoot my response to using the word parasite didn't post from my phone!

Anyway, larry, you comparing a living woman to a bunch of machines is a false comparison, even though it takes humans to support the machines. A baby is taking things from another living thing, it's mother. A person on life support is taking things from a machine, not the same thing.

There are tons of parasitic and symbiotic life forms in the world. Your argument that if it was a parasite the body would reject it is also wrong, as lice, for example, are parasitic. The body doesn't reject them. If it did we wouldn't be calling for the return of the Nit Nurse.

Also, I did say that I didn't like the word but I really can't think of a better one.

I will never agree that an unborn baby is just as important, or more important as a lot of pro-lifers imply, as a mother. There are always things that are more important that other things.

I also would like to applaud all of us on this thread for having a pretty much reasonable conversation rather than a bun fight on this issue. I am very impressed we have not name called (much ) or cursed at each other.

"It may be alive but IT IS NOT A LIFE."

Ooh this will be an interesting distinction - would you care to expand on that?

Actually Tee, pro-lifers have been called quite a few things but we don't usually return the favour.