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i am 13 years old doing a project in school about issues in America and debeting about these issues. So i am pro-choice and can some one explain to me wat RU486 is.

My partner says they should only give abortions to people who got raped or was forced to have sex. I say people should have a choice to witheir have abortion or not. And what if the the girl was under age, her parents and the guys she had sex with left her so she was all alone. Also if they are at the right age with families that will suport them, but they can't aford the child expences and the hospital bill. because My mother passed away 9/12/08 and the hospital bill was large but we could pay it off. other people maybe can not afford the child so they have abortions.

Interesting how- as always- the only "pro-life" commenters are men.

So easy to tell the players what to do when you're not holding the cards. Isn't it?

It seems to me that the pro-choice people have two dogmas:
1. Women have the right to choose abortion
2. The fetus is not a human being until birth.
And they are dogmatic about these, so much so that they can't be discussed at all. It reminds me of the Southerners who after discussions in Virginia in 1840 would never discuss their tenets:
1. The Black people are less than human.
2. Slavery is a just ordering of society.
Hmmm.

The pro-life approach to the woman with the second trimester pregnancy whose life was in danger would be to care for both the mother and the child: if the woman's life was in danger, the fetus would be removed from her body and the doctors would do what they could to keep it from dying. If they failed, well, they tried.
Also, adoption - the pain of giving away a child - the joy of making a childless couple happy and knowing your child is alive somewhere - seems the better choice.

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm pro-life. These women are willing to discuss these things because at some level they realize that they are doing something that affects everyone, the whole human family. They are giving me a welcomed brother or a sister, so I am affected, and I can mourn that they killed my brother or my sister.

Chris and MichaelB:

Something is getting lost here. The fetus is occupying the woman's body. If you rob her of the sovereignty to say whether or not that continues then you send her into slavery.

Funny.

chris
i see your point, but you know the telepathic link is broken at birth.

Then why not let poor women kill their newborns too? A newborn can't talk and the mother can argue it telepathically told her it doesn't want to live a poor life.

chris
oath also once said "I swear by Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses"

Also, we assume the fetus wants to be born. it's possible that said fetus wants a better life and tells fetus carrier telepathically to help him reincarnate sooner and end the gestation.

Phoebe,

Whether or not you want to have a baby is an individual (Or ideally two people) choice but it's ironince that you take for granted animals should have rights, but not human fetuses.

ps
with a 2% failure rate of condom i they we're safe enough.

MichaelB
do you want it both ways?
you said "but if the woman wants to have the baby and he doesn't he will still be responsible to pay child support for the next 20-or-so years."

when you choose to have unprotected sex you choose to give up your right what your partner does with your seed. have the baby or not, her choice. As a responsible man I have a choice, condom or no condom.

For all of you that keep lecturing & preaching to use contraception....

A. Your point is condescending and insulting. The same argument could be made and HAS been made to women as an argument against abortion, as in "too bad, you should have used birth control."

B. You imply that if a woman gets pregnant, it is the man's "fault." Why is it any less the woman's responsibility? Do I detect an a note of anti-male hostility?

C. For whatever reason, contraception sometimes fails. Pregancies sometimes happen despite the best intentions and preparations. The point is is about choices AFTER the fact that the woman is pregnant, not hypotheticals about shouda, coulda, woulda.

Can you direct your comments to that? What about men's right to have a say in THEIR reproductive rights (AFTER THE FACT)? Or do you simply reject the idea that men should have any say in this?

@Chris #15: I'm sure "do no harm" does not apply to the millions of lab rats, dogs, pigs, monkeys etc. that ALL pharma treatments are based upon.

The determination as to when the fetus has rights is an individual choice. If a doctor does not want to abort/prescribe then he/she should not be meeting with people who have freedom of choice.

@MichaelB: I do acknowledge your point, however there are numerous precautions that can be taken to avoid pregnancy (including the condom and the morning-after pill), so if I woman decided to carry-on through duty, religious indoctrination or want to be a mother then that is her business - the baby is created inside her.

Your point on childcare is well taken, but is a side/legal issue. Same could be argued for alimony where the woman cheats in a relationship.

Absolutely, use condoms if you don't want to get pregnant/impregnate. However, the fact is, condoms break, IUDs don't work (I know two people who are the result of IUD pregnancies), you get pregnant despite the pill, etc.

Read this book, it is amazing. It is NOT NOT NOT a big pro-choice fest. It delves into all the complications that can happen around reproduction, from choosing to keep a child everyone tells you you shouldn't, to what if your life is truly in danger if you attempt to carry a much-wanted pregnancy to term, the reprocussions of giving a child up for adoption, etc.

Nothing is so simple.

@Veronica: I believe you're thinking of the morning-after pill, otherwise known as emergency contraception. It has to be taken within 72 hours of intercourse.

Incidentally, I once took the morning-after pill because of a slipped condom. It was quite a task to find out information about the pill--what it does, its legality, where it could be obtained, etc. Maybe the morning-after pill is discussed in sex ed these days, but the fact that I had to educate myself on my choices makes me wonder how many women and girls have unwanted pregnancies because of lack of similar access to such information.

And thank you MrsSmith for your reference to the Glamour blog.

Original hippocratic oath, contains this line.

"Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion."

Phoebe, I acknowledge your point, and I don't wish to get into a pissing contest (why I usually avoid blogs) but by extention of your logic, why couldn't the argument be made that if the woman insists on "bearing the burden", she gets to bear it from that point forward?

Not to minimize it at all, but for the sake of the 9 months of pregnancy, the woman gets to determine much of a man's fate for decades.

Look, I think men SHOULD be responsible, but I think our society would be much healthier if the male's participation was acknowledged. For decades now, the entire subject has had men standing -- invisible, on the sidelines, EXCEPT when it comes to $$$.

Children do much better when they have fathers involved in their lives, and including & acknowledging men's "rights" in this basic aspect of a society's mores is an important step toward this goal.

@hjs. Hear hear.

MichaelB
you have 99.9% control over being a father or not. just use a rubber and no worries. your choice.

Interesting that doctors can make a moral judgement; they should not be practising in that area if they disagree with people's choices.

Thanks for the clarification.

You don't "reduce" a fetus. You kill a it.

Mifepristone (RU486) is a synthetic steroid compound used as a pharmaceutical. It is used as an abortifacient in the first two months of pregnancy, and in smaller doses as an emergency contraceptive.

#1 Michael

There is a single-mother blogger on Glamour.com (her blog is called Storked!) and she goes against your (perceived) presumption about the choices women ultimately make when deciding to continue a pregnancy. There are many ways in which the multitude of conception stories can play out and I understand your position. I just wanted to point out a notable exception to an unspoken "rule".

Veronica-
the drug you're thinking about is emergency contraception, or Plan B, which has the same horomones as a birth control pill. it helps prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex.

Maybe I'm misinformed, but isn't RU486 used primarily right after you think you might be pregnant, like if a condom breaks. Not really used as an abortion method? Please inform.

Michael - it seems to me that the entire rationale behind being "pro-choice" is that the fetus is not considered to be anything more than a growth in the woman's body and the woman can therefore choose to remove it just as she can remove a mole without anyone else's input. If the fetus is viewed as a human being, the rationale for the pro-choice movement would fall apart since abortion would then be considered murder.

why don't people use condoms, solves a lot of problems and they are really cheap. great investments

Dude! The female bears the major brunt of pregnancy.

Missing from almost all these discussions about reproductive choice is the inclusion of males.

For example, what about a man's choice to be a father? If a man impregnates a woman, SHE can decide whether or not she is ready to be a mothter, but he not only does not have a say in the matter, but if the woman wants to have the baby and he doesn't he will still be responsible to pay child support for the next 20-or-so years.

On the other hand the woman may not want the baby, but the father might, but again, he has no say.

Biological destiny? Perhaps, but it at least deserves to be acknowledged in discourses about this subject.

Females are not the only gender to be affected by reproductive choices but they seem to have a monopoly when it comes to making those choices.