White House Discerns 'Need for Abortion,' But Some Disagree

Can survive on its own

"A fetus in the third trimester can survive on its own, but becuase it is not born yet, you believe it is "absurd" to count it as a person?"

If all those fetuses can survive on their own, why is 1 in 115 a stillbirth? The way to tell whether a fetus to survive is for it to BE born, after which we know which ones are 'persons'.

Your bringing up Scott Peterson, for the millionth time, leads to the question - how can we possibly convince women that abortion isn't the right choice when the fathers are so reluctant? The leading cause of death in pregnant women is partner violence.

Rob Winslow

Rob Winslow,

Why is Paul Bradford's notion that the unborn should be counted as people so absurd? A fetus in the third trimester can survive on its own, but becuase it is not born yet, you believe it is "absurd" to count it as a person? In my mind, not counting a baby that can survive outside of the womb is "absurd." Take a look at the Scott Peterson case. If it is so "absurd" to count an unborn baby as a person, then why was Peterson convicted of 2nd degree murder for killing his unborn child?

Paul Bradford

carries the non-sensical arguments about "persons in the womb" to an absurd extreme by indicating that "ageism" is responsible for our not counting the "unborn" in the same way we count actual humn beings outside the womb (maybe Bradford is being ironic--no matter, just read on).

Did I say "the absurd extreme?" I think I can go him one better and by so doing give real meaning to the Roman Catholic Church's prohibition on contraception.

Since the US Constitution counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, could we agree to count sperm (aren't there millions of them released during sex?) as, say, one-half a person? Partial people (like slaves and sperm) should be regarded with at least some reverence for life and thus considered as we count our total population.

I can't see any logical reason for assuming a fetus or an embryo has a right to lfe and a sperm doesn't. And don't forget the unfertilized eggs.

For Mart of KS

"...the divided zygote sometimes recombines to form a single individual..." is a single physical human being with, curiously, two spiritual souls. Two people, in a sense, in one body.

Two people in one body????? Where do you get this?

The minute people start making statements about 'souls' is when they leave the realm of understanding and enter the world of fairy tales. There is no way for people to determine the existence of souls. I could be the only soul in the universe. Maybe there are ten million souls inside my body. It's all nonsense!

We know there are human bodies and the existence of a body is reason enough to show respect to someone. If you have a living human body I need to treat you as a human. I'm not going to waste time trying to figure out how many 'souls' you've got. Two zygotes means two human bodies. One zygote is one human body. Either way, I've got to show respect.

Paul Bradford, Pro-Life Catholics for Choice

Response to George Carlin

reason,

Thank you for including the Carlin quote (he was not only one of the funniest people in history, he was also one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking).

There's really only one reason we don't count fetuses in the census, or provide them with funerals or include them when we 'count heads' in our family: habitual and relentless ageism. A lot of people claim that abortion is the core problem -- I say it's just a symptom of the problem. We don't value the lives of the very young and it shows up in hundreds of ways -- as Carlin so eloquently expressed.

The unborn have a lot of needs that go beyond the need not to be aborted. Why, for example, can't they be named as beneficiary of a life insurance policy? Why can't they sue for damages when they're hurt in an accident? The unborn have very specific health care needs and when money gets divided up for medical research the needs of the unborn are regularly overlooked. I could go on and on but there's a character limit to posts on this 'site.

The USA has made great strides in advancing civil rights across all segments of the population. Eventually we will get around to correcting the ageist injustices that are inflicted every day on the unborn.

Paul Bradford, Pro-Life Catholics for Choice

"Mart," written by reason of CA

reason,

In regards to your George Carlin quote, I believe that a fetus is a human. Many people just have different beliefs of when human life begins. Some believe it to begin at conception, some at 6 weeks when the heart begins to beat, at week 10 when brain activity is apparent, the 3rd trimester when the baby can survive outside of the womb, or after it is born (mayoclinic.com). And because people generally only think of "murder" as the killing of other humans, abortion is considered "murder" by many who believe that human life begins at some point before birth.

Mart

"The deciding factor of murder is whether or not the taking of a life was intentional with knowledge that a life is being taken."

Then we are all murderers....we take the MURDER animals and plants knowingly to eat, MURDER insects, MURDER bacteria.......millions upon millions a day just to save the comfort of the one person. Check your definition again.

"If a fetus is a human being, how come the census doesn't count them? If a fetus is a human being, how come when there's a miscarriage there isn't a funeral? If a fetus is a human being, how come couples say 'we have 2 children and one on the way', instead of saying 'we have THREE children'. Some people say that life begins at conception, I say life began over a BILLION years ago and it's just a continuous process.....just keeps rolling and rolling along." - George Carlin

Need for abortion

"There is no authentic need for abortion."

Hasn't this guy ever heard of ectopic pregnancy? Eclasmpia? Anencephalic fetus? Conjoined non-viable feti? Dead fetus?

I don't go down to the nearest church looking for medical care when I'm sick and this kind of statement sure explains why. Zero scientific knowledge about what pregnancy actually involves and less than that about what appropriate medical care involves.

Anti abortion politics

This issue is all political for the anti abortion advocates.

Reducing abortions is not the issue - they want a law changed. And if they ever succeed, they will sleep with a smile on their face even while abortions occur in the back alleys like they always did prior to legalization.

In the meantime, the Republican Party will string the anti abortion advocates along for every vote without ever changing the law. Because if the law changes, many of those voters will be free to return to the Democrats.

Abortion

As as pro-lifer, I believe that abortion is wrong and view it as killing an a live person, but I also have some sense. I do not condemn abortion in cases of rape or incest because the woman was not in control of her body at the time. Other than that, I believe women (and their partners) should be held accountable for what they do. If a woman chooses to have unprotected sex and winds up pregnant from it, she should have to deal with the consequences of her actions.

All this being said, I agree with the White House's plan to reduce the "need for abortion" and believe President Obama is doing is doing a great job of going about this so far. According to Sharon Jayson of USA Today, Obama is cutting all funding for abstinence only sex education. This is an important step in educating teens about sex and thus preventing unwanted pregnancies and abortions.