How do you feel about abortion when the pregnancy is NOT the woman's fault?

Question

I know abortion questions usually start a huge debate-- but I'd prefer a discussion. I'm curious how people feel about abortion-- ASIDE from the normal arguments of "if she couldn't handle the responsibility, she shouldn't have had s*x."

Should abortion be legal when the woman has been raped? Also, should it be legal when the woman purposely got pregnant, and is only aborting it because the child will have a poor quality of life (big medical problems, etc) or the woman's life will be in danger?

Again, this isn't a matter of using abortion as a form of birth control-- this is more specific.

Answer 1

See this is where i believe abortion is justified.

I'm not against abortion, i just want restrictions put upon it, as in, i dont want to see it used as a form of birth control.

I agree with you.

By the way, a civilized debate and a discussion are the same thing.

Heythere: I'm sure dad will be there to take care of the baby.

Answer 2

Maybe she shouldn't be so d**n fertile, eeewww

Answer 3

I believe it is standard if a woman reports a rape immediately and is taken to a hospital, she is counseled and offered the "morning-after" pill. That technically is not abortion, because she would not yet be pregnant. Pregnancy occurs at implantation. This pill would just cause her to not ovulate so if there is a chance she may become pregnant (there's no guarantee she is) she then has a high chance of not becoming pregnant (but not 100%), After that, if she is pregnant, then it's her choice.

Answer 4

I think using abortion as a result or rape or hurting the mother is perfectly acceptable.  you dont know what your getting yourself into after a rape pregancy. also if its gonna hurt the mother who will be left to take care of the baby ( especially in a single mother household.)  Im still on the fence if the child will have poor quaility life.. cause thats widely interpreted..   im not really sure what is ment by that cause you can always look for positive in anything.. if your child will be mentaly disabled   it dosent make them any less of a person, they are still a child who needs love and affection so i dont necessarily think abortion is the way to solve it.  

Answer 5

Abortion is a legal medical procedure.  Its nobody's business and a matter between the woman and her physician.

Answer 6

abortion should always be legal for any reason prior to full human brain development (viability) and after than it should be legal for any abnormal fetus.  The woman should be the one to decide.

After viability of a  normal fetus, the woman should have an early birth rather than an abortion if that is possible...however no matter what she should not be prosecuted for having an abortion  

Answer 7

Well if the girl is simply to young, and there is no incubation possibility yeah abortion is the only way out.

Else, women should at least consider sacving a life....i really hope incubation was  possible..or could come soon :(

Answer 8

Well right now, Abortion is legal for all of that.

And I agree with it.

Answer 9

Contraceptive failure is not the woman's fault either!

Answer 10

Honestly, using the "logic" of some people on here, I could say that since it rarely happens, I shouldn't worry about it.  That's the response you usually get when something affects men, but it's rare.

However, I won't take the easy, cowardly way out like a lot of people do.  I'll answer the question.

The truth is, I really can't make up my mind on the rape issue.  I don't think abortion and punishing the child is the way to go, but I can completely sympathize with a woman who wants an abortion then.  She didn't choose to get pregnant.

Having said that, I really can't find abortion to be a valid choice unless the mother's life is seriously in danger.  I'm just not comfortable with that.

As for aborting when the baby is going to have medical problems, that sounds very much like eugenics to me, and I don't want to go there.  I've known people with severe medical conditions who've made significant contributions to society.  Should we have aborted them?  Absolutely not.

Professor- But I suppose it's the man's fault when it happens to him, right?

Answer 11

I think that a woman should be able to decide on whether or not she wants an abortion for any of those cases. If a woman was raped she shouldn't be judged by anyone for the abortion, I think anyone who gets one shouldn't. I do think it's wrong when a woman just can't be smart enough to take a pill a day. I knew this woman who had over 6 abortions with her husband and at that point I thought it was a little sick. I'm very pro-choice, but that's also just my opinion :)

Answer 12

My thing is abortion is murder, but if you are gonna die or something then you must  think of your life as more important.  I think that rape is a diffrent subject should you be forced to have a baby that was forced on you no way.  My friend had a test done when she was pregnant with her baby girl.  The test showed that she had an abnormality.  She cried hard and her and her husband were faced with the decision to abort or not to.  They chose to keep the baby.  Thank god cause the child was missing her baby toe.  She said what if I had aborted.  The child is the sunshine of their lives.

Answer 13

I always think abortion should only be considered on a case by case basis.

Every pregnancy just like ever birth is different. The circumstances need to be weighed and considered carefully.

The ultimate circumstance is not to have an unwanted pregnancy in the first place, but that is not always possible - even under the best conditions.

Answer 14

I am sure there is a large population out there that wished they were aborted. all the people that take their lives.

also lets say you live in kansas. what do you care if someone in Nevada has an abortion. live your own sad life and mind your business. i do not tell you how to live your life..

Answer 15

I don't think abortion is the answer...even in the case of rape. I am VERY sorry for ANY woman who has experienced being raped. However, it is not the child's fault that she was raped. I think it would be extremely difficult to be raped, get pregnant, carry the baby, deliver the baby and either raise the baby or relinquish it for adoption. EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. But usually, the right thing to do, is the difficult thing to do. Correct...it is NOT a woman's fault if she is raped, but it is not the child's fault either, and the child shouldn't have to pay the price for someone else's wrong (in this case, the rapist). A woman who has been raped has to live with that for the rest of her life. It is my belief that it would be worse for her to live with that horrible memory as well as the memory of "sucking her child into a sink." If she has the baby and chooses to raise it or give it to another family, she can have more peace knowing she did a very good thing, in the midst of a very dark time.

As for medical reasons being OK to have an abortion....I disagree with that one as well. Life is precious...period. It's not up to us to decide which life has value and which does not. Check out this link of an AMAZING person who's life has helped shape the lives of many others....I am so thankful his mother didn't abort him. YouTube - Rick Hohn - A DynaVox Success Story. (If that doesn't work, google "Rick Hohn Dynavox."

Good question....and good non-threatening approach.

Answer 16

Abortion is a tough issue to debate because many who are against it don't see the fetus as anything but a baby no matter what the circumstances.

Because I'm pro-choice, I support a woman's right to abort up to a certain point in her pregnancy. So yes, it should be legal after rape and it should be legal no matter what the woman's reasons are.

But again, almost every anti-abortion advocate I've met disagrees (though I certainly don't speak for all of them). It's not that they're pro-rape or anti-women, it's just that they see babies where we ("we" meaning many pro-choice people) see cells and the potential for babies. It's rather hard to get anywhere with those arguments going up against one another.

The best thing we could do for both sides in this country is improve s*x education, pregnancy prevention, and adoption. A reduced number of abortions is something we can all agree on, don't you think?

Answer 17

In the case of rape, it should be the mother's choice whether or not to have an abortion because her body has been violated without her consent. On the same note, I think that women should be encouraged to give the baby up for adoption, as the child wasn't responsible for the actions taken by the biological father.

Abortion should also be allowed when the mother's life is in danger because of the pregnancy. Here, it is clearly a choice between the life of the mother and the life of the child. I wouldn't tell someone to die for someone else, and I wouldn't tell a woman to go through a pregnancy that would potentially end her life.

Aborting because of mental or physical deficiency is a form of active eugenics. Those who have these problems are no less valuable or human because of them, and to abort them on this basis is to undermine their humanity. I feel the same way about certain countries aborting because the fetus is female.

What defines poor quality of life? You may cite rare, extreme cases where the child is in constant pain, is born without part of their brain, etc. but most women who abort for this reason are not dealing with an extreme case. My mother-in-law aborted at 25 weeks because her baby had downs syndrome, and she literally held it while it died. Don't believe me, she'll tell you the story for free. No one acknowledged her grief at the baby's death or realizes that she gave it a name and still think about it on the date of it's "birth".

These are not black and white questions.  

Answer 18

Abortion is a woman's right - women are entitled to have contol over their bodies.  

However, in response to your discussion questions....it really angers me when people say abortion should only be allowed in the case of rape or when the mothers life is in danger or the baby would be formed deformed.

This is because usually, such people reject abortions in other circumstances because they think the baby has the right to life and so on....yet they are uncomfortable at the thought of a raped woman having to go through with a pregnancy, so they add on the idea that in certain extreme circumstances abortion can be allowed. Wow, hang on a second but you are completely contradicting your argument about a baby's life if you say that!  

If you think a baby has a right to life then why would you say except when they are the product of rape - after all, the baby is innocent and it is not the baby's fault what happened to the mother.  Of course no one really thinks that a child produced through rape is any less valuable than one conceived through a woman choosing to have s*x.  

As for when the baby is deformed - do disabled children not have the right to life?  Of course you cannot say a deformed/very ill child is less valuable either.  We cannot judge on the quality of life of another human being, it is not for us to say.  Again, this nullifies the argument abortion should be allowed in circumstances of rape and a disabled foetus.

Finally, people say ok, when the mothers life is in danger as well as the other two reasons.  So suddenly the mothers life is more important than that of the child, when she is about to die?  Well if you think the baby and the woman have an equal right to life why woud you automatically assume the baby has to die? That is not fair to say the least.  So, if you are accepting that the women's life is more important then you illustrate the point that women should be allowed to choose abortions for whatever reason - personal choice or whatever.  

On the rape issue, there is also the practicality of how to prove a woman who is pregnant has been raped?  You would get desparate women claiming to have been raped to try get an abortion.  It's an ugly situation and grossly unfair.  If you were to make abortion illegal you would just have thousands of women risking their lives in backstreet abortion clinics...many of whom will die.  This is not a satisfactory situtation in a western civilised country.

No one has the right to say what a woman has to do with her body, or to force her to go through with a pregnancy. If you think it would be so awful to make a raped woman go through with a pregnancy when she wants an abortion, how can you possibly think it is okay to make ANY woman be forced to go through with a pregnancy she doesn't want? It is a horrific idea.

Therefore, in conclusion, i think those people who believe abortion should only be allowed to have abortions in specific extreme circumstances are being weak and silly in their thinking.  You either think abortion is wrong in all cases or you agree a woman has the right to choose no matter what.

But let's also keep our sensible hats on here - for the vast majority of women, choosing to have an abortion is a very serious decision which is also harrowing...it is not a form of birth control, with women skipping off down to the abortion clinic, cackling evily.  I advocate giving women better support so many might feel supported and able to go through with pregnancies...perhaps this would lower the abortion rate.  Deny a woman's rights is not the way to go about this.

Edit: I'm disturbed by the number of people saying any other reason than rape/danger to life of the woman is a selfish reason for seeking an abortion...or those who say a raped woman "didn't know what she was getting into".  Look, women and men have s*x in the 21st century and even if they are careful, sometimes things go wrong....we can't start judging each woman on how "deserving" she is of an abortion.......either a woman is entitled to choose, or she isn't.  I have more respect for people who do not sit on the middle of the fence just cos it eases their conscience a bit.

Answer 19

Using abortion as a form of birth control is wrong, however, using abortion to abort a fetus that would kill the mother in birth, is a result of incest, is deformed or a product of rape should be tolerated.

Other than that, women should have to deal with the responsibility of having s*x just as much as a man should, it takes two to tango and nor the father or the mother should have any more or less responsibility for their actions.

Oh and for your statement it isn't her fault shes pregnant, if it was consensual s*x (Which most the time it is.) It is her fault if she got knocked up, she could of told the man to use protection or taken initiative and did it her self, and if non was available she could of refused s*x.

There is equal blame on the male and female gender in casual s*x cases for unwanted pregnancies, its not fair to say it isn't the womans fault when it actually is just as much as the males.

Answer 20

I think that no matter what you shouldn't abort a child even it it was not her fault.

Answer 21

It is really a big issue today many people use abortion as a tool becuase they had mutual intercourse but they don't need to be pregnant. They are behaving like animals that's why they are being affected by many disease e.g AIDS they daily change their partners and so on. In Islam it is prohibited to abolish the child, wheather if its from rape too. because when you abolish a child we know we kill a cell which will grow in future. so we are killing a live. its illegal and a great sin. people must do intercourses but with a limit. do not change your partner have s*x when you like it strongly. Do not use s*x as a pleasure or enjoyment.

Answer 22

Although i will admit that rape is an awful situation i don't believe there is ever a time when someone should kill another person just because they are an inconvenience, especially a child.  

Answer 23

absolutely. a woman should have control over her body.