origami_itto wrote:I challenge anyone anywhere to provide documentation of this happening.
I was making a point; Steve got it. It's more or less as ludicrous as my "other-side argument", where a positive pregnancy test equates to "a person" (even if some "lunatics" say that's the case).
I don't believe it needs to be a case-by-case, it is very simple. If a woman wants to terminate her pregnancy, she should be able to have safe and easy access to an abortion, full stop.
Why do we feel the government should be involved in a woman's health choices and family planning? Why do we feel like we should punish women for having sex?
Certainly this has nothing to do with "punishment for having sex", as there are countless ways of doing so without pregnancy being involved.
But I am with you on government's involvement in women's choices though -- I was actually making that very point, at least in part.
I completely disagree that "it is very simple" though; if it were, this issue wouldn't have been one of the hottest topics that never seems to be resolved to everyone's even mild satisfaction. How about surrogate pregnancies? How about she makes that decision under duress? Under substance influence? Etc., etc., etc.
Incidentally, that very "it's simple" idea is one of the primary causes of the disagreement, because I can just hear someone from "the other side" say something very similar: "It's very simple. The moment you can hear a heartbeat on the monitor, you have a living person with a beating heart, so terminating that life is murder. Full stop."
With at least as much conviction as you, I'm sure.
I hope people will start seeing this in a more emotionally-detached and empathic fashion... Realize that the "other side" is also fairly intelligent human beings with feelings, just like them. That's a potential path out of this mess (if there can even be one) -- a conversation based on at least an attempt at mutual acceptance, instead of digging deeper into their respective cozy little trenches.