Replies

Personally I think people ought to use their limited time on earth convincing people not to have abortions, rather than wasting their energy trying to outlaw the procedure. Who cares if abortion is legal if nobody is doing it?

Why outlaw murder, rape, molestation, theft, drunkeness, drugs, etc? We should spend more time just convincing people not to do these things rather than waste time and capital outlawing and enforcing laws against these behaviors.

The argument in favor of abortion laws is that "a woman can do anything she wants with her own body". The things you mention are crimes against other people - or at least potentially against others in the case of drugs and alcohol - although some do use the same reasoning when they advocate legalization of marijuana.

The fallacy behind the "it's MY body" argument is that the fetus is NOT part of her body. It is more like a parasite that is totally dependent upon her for nine months for its protection and nourishment, but is genetically nonidentical to the mother. Although the fetus may share some genetic markers with the mother, it is a combination of the genetic information of both parents and is not exactly like either one. That's what we were getting at in our posts - you have to change the hearts of young women so that they come to realize that abortion is killing a living child, not just an inviable mass of tissue. The advent of 3-D sonograms is helping this a lot, but many very young girls that are pressured to have abortions have not ever seen such pictures or even had any exposure to child development. If they go through with the procedure and later find out the truth, they are very often devastated and overcome with guilt about what they have done.

Laws that require that women be told the whole truth prior to having an abortion and require a 24-hour waiting period would prevent many abortions. Under no circumstances should an abortion be legal beyond the first trimester. I would prefer that it not be legal at all, except to save the life of the mother, but IMO that is unrealistic after over 30 years of Roe vs. Wade. Since that decision was obviously unconstitutional, in an ideal world I would like to see it overturned and any decision about the legality of abortion left up to the states.