When does life begin? Conception or Birth? Why pro-choice?

Question

For the life of me, I CANNOT understand why you are not considered alive until you are born. Does shooting out of a v****a really make you more valuable than if you were not? It's just location. Am I less important if I am in NY instead of Texas?? Does attaining oxygen through my lungs make me more important that if I was getting it via the umbilical cord? Is a 2 year old girl less important than a 21 year old because she is less developed?...so a fetus is less important because it is less developed? Is it okay to kill if something (a cluster of fertilized cells) can't feel the pain? So I can kill someone who is paralyzed and can't feel and I won't go to jail? Do people really not understand the stages of a developing baby and honestly think it's a blob of tissue? I would really like someone to use SCIENCE to explain to me why abortion isn't taking/killing life, and why you are not considered alive until you are born....because I can use all the science in the world to explain why it is.

Answer 1

You, my dear, are thinking about this logically.  Unfortunately, pro-choice people fail in that area.

Answer 2

I believe life begins at conception. I am also pro-choice. I, personally, could never go through an abortion. I'm not for it, in most cases I think it's disgusting and horrible. Especially when girls use it as a form of birth control. But what someone else wants to do to their own body and developing baby is their business. I'm going to try not to judge them, no matter how much I disagree. And then there are cases of rape and/or incest. In those situations, I wouldn't expect a girl or women to carry that child.  

Answer 3

I am pro- choice because I beleive we as women should have the right to choose.

Simple as that. It does not mean I am stupid, or a muderer. I believe in choices for all women!  

Answer 4

This really isn't an appropriate forum for this. You should take this conversation to the rest of the bible thumpers and get your opinions validated there, since that seems to be all you are looking for.

There are a lot of hormonal women here in this particular category, particularly scared teenagers. This is for questions about pregnancy, not your moral issues.

Please take your propaganda elsewhere.

Thank you!

Answer 5

It's because it makes people feel better to excuse it away. The same reason they use the word "fetus" instead of baby, even though the word fetus is Latin for baby. People are always going to disagree on this, as they will every other issue, but going on a rant on yahoo answers probably won't change anyone's mind about what most already feel strongly about, one way or the other.  

Answer 6

if a girl is raped and becomes pregnant is she considered a murderer for trying forget and by doing so has an abortion so she doesnt give birth, therefor GIVE LIFE to a child, a relation to a person who hurt her.

i have never heard anyone call someone who was raped a murderer for having an abortion. life begins at birth, you need to breath air, and drink water, and eat food, and have sunlight to live. how does a fetus, cover all that while in a womb?

people like you are narrow minded, if you were raped by a man who murdered your family, would you keep the baby, possible, likely or whatver, if that happened, god forbid, but if it did, woulld you keep the child of the man who is the reason you have no family?

You are a horrible person for doing this to a 17 year old girl, copy and pasting half of the answer you left me, that is horrible.

IS it ok to keep a child that is going to suffer because you did? is it ok to keep something because you want it, even though it isnt good for it? is that ok?

I would love to meet you in person and i would love to talk to you about this in person, and i would love to try and hear you explain why you are so ******* NARROW MINDED AND ARROGANT!

It is people like that are the reason many girls, who are teenagers, barely adults themselves have children.

And you are acting like a child, this is clearly you trying to make a point that your opinion is better then anyone else.

would you tell a mother how to raise her child? what school to send it to? what hospital to be born in? what name it should be called?

What gives you the right then to tell a potential mother that is committing a sin, that she is a murderer, because she, who knows herself better then anyone else on earth knows that SHE cannot do it, that she could not have the child and then give it to someone else. or that she could not have a child in her current position in life.

You have children, would you tell your daughter she was not to have an abortion because it is murder, and that she is to be have that child and give it away to someone, after all the sleepless nights, morning sickness and pain she has to hand it over to someone else who gets to raise this child, her own flesh and blood.

if you can use all the science in the world, please email me AGAIN explaing this, and i can use all the logic, science, and compassion in the world to explain why it isnt.

If i chose to get my dogs hair cut for summer, if it was a long haired dog, am i doing wrong, because it is a living breathing being? i am forcing my actions onto it, there is no way the dog can convey its feelings to me.

If someone has a child, how is that ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS! YOU HAVE YOUR BELIEFS, YOUR MISGUIDED IDEAS, KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF, DO NOT IMFLICT THEM ON SOMEONE WHO IS ASKING FOR HELP!

I hope that your children never get treated by you the way you have treated me.

Answer 7

You are 'alive' before you are born.  YOu do not, however, attain legal personhood until you are born.  Which is why your age is measured from birth.  And why census-takers don't count pregnant women as two people. (By contrast, a 2 year old would be counted as a 'person' by that same census taker.)

The LAW (in most states/countries) does not just take into consideration whether a fetus is 'alive' or not, but the right of the woman to decide what to do with her own body.  Since the fetus cannot live outside the woman's body she DOES have the right to decide if she wants to carry the fetus until it is viable and able to live on-the-outside.

Medically, a woman is not pregnant until the fertilized egg implants, so even at its most rudinemtary, 'life' does not begin until implantation, which is after conception.

Beyond that -- it's a matter of personal belief and opinion.  You do what is right for YOU.  Let someone else make her own choices, based on HER beliefs and needs. I would never tell a woman she must have an abortion if she wouldn't feel right about it.  But neither is it your right to tell a woman that she can't, or shouldn't have one -- just because YOU don't like the idea.

Which is what 'pro-choice' means.  

Answer 8

People have their own opinions on abortion. Its not necessary to ask something like this! You may not accept abortion, but others do, simple as that!

Answer 9

Conception by God's will.. - I am pro-life.  murder is murder at 5 weeks or 35 weeks.

Answer 10

Conception...i am pro-choice because it's murder

Answer 11

i believe life starts at birth because that's when a child takes their first breath and is presented to the world in all the world's awful amazing glory.  

but i'd be willing to take the islamic approach, and say life begins when the baby begins to move.

before then it's a group of specialized cells.  a lot of potential?  yes. statistically miraculous?  yes.  but still without a brain, heart, anything.  and the vast majority of these cells are rejected by the human body without people even knowing.  so the true miracle is that the cells develop into a true human being, and that's what we should be celebrating.

i'm pro choice (in early term abortion) because i think life is a gift.  if you can't take care of something, you should give it back.  while i'm pro adoption, i'm also realistic.  there are a LOT of children sitting in miserable situations waiting to find a good home, and there just aren't enough people taking them in. even worse, there are children suffering in their biological parents' homes because the parents were completely unfit.  if you're just going to starve your kid and beat them every day, you and the kid were better off aborting it way early, before it could feel physical and mental pain.

i'm off my soapbox now.

Answer 12

It is when the babies heart starts beating is when it it is alive which is at about 5 weeks pregnant. I am against abortion especially because I lost a baby at 20 weeks. That baby still got a birth and death certificate. And I don't understand how after you enter your second trimester if someone kills the mother and baby it is two murders or if just the baby dies it is murder. All of it doesn't make sense how people can think it isn't living because it is. It can feel pain at a certain stage too.  

Answer 13

I totally agree with you. I don't see how it is any different. If you don't want the child you created, give it to one of the couples who have been on a waiting list for years to adopt a newborn.

Answer 14

The question is this..

Is the woman more important that the fetus?

If so, you're pro-choice

If not, you're pro-life.

I'm pro-choice because about 90% of the facts that the pro-life movement presents (fetal pain = crock, disproven by science, statistics are often greatly skewed, the whole nurse Shafer and silent scream issues which I know are a crock because I work in medicine, and the whole issue of "God' and the whole 'blessing" nonsense), and because it's not really my place to tell other people what to do, or to judge them. I personally would not have an abortion, because I am able to support a baby and am not in a bad place in my life, but I do not fault women who choose not to add another mouth to the government payroll, or send them to a foster home where they run the risk of abuse.

Working in medicine, I know there are little to no scientific facts to support the pro-life movement, it's a moral crusade.

Answer 15

prolife, yes life begins at conception.  when the baby implants itself into the uterine lining.  the cells begin multiplying which means its very much alive.  

Answer 16

Just a heads up...you're going to get tons of negative comments for this post! Anywho, I can totally see where you're coming from. But I think there are certain situations in which abortion should be an option for people, and under those circumstances - I'm pro-choice. As for using abortion as a form of birth control, I am totally against it. I guess I kind of feel like there should be limitations, especially since it is alive. It irks my nerves to hear people who are go out and have unprotected s*x, and then don't want to face the consequences so they just opt to terminate the pregnancy. Its irresponsible. But, I understand an abortion if a fetus has a severe defect that will jeopardize his life or if the mother's life is at risk. Truth be told, people will do what they want to do anyways, regardless of who does ot doesn't agree. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions about the subject.  

Answer 17

I personally am pro-choice but I accept that an abortion is termination of a life in being.  I would say that because of this, I could not have an abortion myself but I do not judge others who choose to do so.

However, it makes me mad when people (and by people, I mean some friends of mine who have had abortions) have tried to justify their action by saying -Oh its not a life, its just a bunch of cells before (6/7 9/10 weeks - they're never quite sure)...

Sorry but that is rubbish.  As I have said to them - you don't have to do anything to have this child.  All you have to do is continue your life as normal and a baby will be born (in whatever state if you are smoking, drinking, taking drugs - but it will probably still be born).  To NOT have that child once you are pregnant requires decisive action i.e an abortion.

How can you say that there is no life if if you were to just leave it alone a baby would be the end result.

So have an abortion, but be willing to accept that you ARE terminating a life.