Why are liberals and conservatives nearly always pro- and anti-abortion respectively? There is a feminist argument in favour of it, and a religious argument against it; feminists tend to be liberal and religious types conservative, so I suppose people who don't really give a shit about the subject are inclined to just side with their own.
In my view, though, both of these arguments are sidestepping the real issue at the core of this whole business: whether you believe a foetus is a human life or not. Obviously most people - regardless of their political leanings - consider killing humans to be a generally bad thing, so it follows that if you don't think it's a human, you will be fine with abortion, and if you do think it's a human, you won't be.
But what constitutes a human being is a pretty abstract philosophical question; how is one's position on the political spectrum supposed to influence something like that? And yet it obviously does - people's views on abortion always seem to fall so neatly in line with their views on everything else. So maybe I just don't get it.
Here in the United States(and you don't find people picketing or bombing abortion clinics in Europe or Asia)...
What people -say- about abortion falls in line with their views on everything else. That is to say that there's a lot of middle/upper class women who say abortion is wrong and would gossip about anyone who had one, but are secretly glad it's available in case they need. The point I'm trying to make is that most people fall somewhere in between the angry feminists and the whackos protesting clinics.
It's legal because most people support it and most of those who don't realize it should be available for medical emergencies, raped women, et cetera.
You'll see a lot of conservative political candidates use it as a carrot to lure old people, hillbillies, and religious nuts to the voting booths, but they very rarely try to do anything about it.
The woman has a right to choose to get an abortion, although, it's my personal belief that if she didn't want a kid in the first place she should have been smart enough to use proper protection. I have nothing against abortion, as long as it's done before the creature develops a brain. Before it develops a brain, it's just another mass of cells, like a callus on your foot.
What should be done about the issue of abortion in the USA is allow the individual states to decided whether or not to legalize or ban abortion. The federal government should have no say in the matter as far as I'm concerned. And overturn Roe Vs. Wade.
As far as my own personal belief, I'm generally not too happy that abortion exists, but I do see in some extreme cases where it can be used, such as rape and whatnot. I agree with >>3 that proper protection should be used, but I don't agree that it's just a mass of cell like a callus on a foot.
>>2
Oh forgot to add, you don't necessarily have to be religious to be against abortion. Heck, there's even atheists that are against it. http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
> Why are liberals and conservatives nearly always pro- and anti-abortion respectively?
> how is one's position on the political spectrum supposed to influence something like that?
It's a polarizing issue. The folks that are strongly for/against abortion may start out as single issue voters. Then they start reading the literature and listening to the talk radio that rallies against it. Their soft, malleable minds are then introduced to other kinds political outrage such as church vs. state issues. Pretty soon their worldview has been molded to such a degree that they find themselves agreeing with a party's entire political platform.
While I consider myself a democrat I can understand both sides of the abortion issue. Personally I think that it should be allowed in cases of rape or incest, or if the mother's health is in danger, or if the fetus is deformed. However I also understand the desire to restrict abortions once the fetus has developed to a certain extent.
It would be nice if there was a way to transplant a fetus from a mother who didn't want it into a woman willing to give birth but I am afraid that this is currently beyond or medical technology.
Then again, I also support capital punishment for the most heinous of crimes.
>>6
yeah pretty much it, good post, extra points for being impartial
> It would be nice if there was a way to transplant a fetus from a mother who didn't want it into a woman willing to give birth but I am afraid that this is currently beyond or medical technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogacy
> she may, as a gestational carrier, carry the pregnancy to delivery after having been implanted with an embryo,
it's definitely not currently beyond our medical technology.
Pro-lifers are morons. Maybe you should worry about the children who are already here, because abortion isn't going anywhere.
>>11
This statement is so idiotic and dimwitted that it's not even worth the rebuttal.
> it's definitely not currently beyond our medical technology.
But how late can a pregnancy still be transplanted from one woman to another? I'm not talking about embryos here, I'm talking about transplanting fully developed fetuses including the third trimester
I'm a republican because I have rightist ideals on economics (free market)... I support abortion. Not every person is suited to be a parent, and some have children forced upon them. And the child protection, adoption and foster care agencies don't work well, if at all, in their current state. I also support the death sentence (lol liberals, don't realize that a person can't feel pain once they've been knocked out and paralyzed before the lethal heart stopping injection). I'm switching to libertarian party if the next year is just as fucked up as last. The two-party system isn't really getting anyone anywhere.
>>12
It is not idiotic (the first sentence may be offensive, but gets the point across with the second sentence). It is the smartest comment I've seen yet. If couple stopped having kids and started raising ones who already exist, then we'd probably have a turnover in the number of abortions. Bad/non-existant parenting causes children to act out irresponsibly, creating the imfamous kids with kids phenomenon, which leads down a spiral path of bad/non-existant parenting until the pattern is broken.
>>13
That includes transplanting the placenta as well. I also don't know about the horomones that the mother receiving the fetal transplant would work out. Also blood type, rejection of the fetus, etc.
>It is not idiotic (the first sentence may be offensive, but gets the point across with the second sentence). It is the smartest comment I've seen yet. If couple stopped having kids and started raising ones who already exist, then we'd probably have a turnover in the number of abortions. Bad/non-existant parenting causes children to act out irresponsibly, creating the imfamous kids with kids phenomenon, which leads down a spiral path of bad/non-existant parenting until the pattern is broken.
Then they shouldn't have had a kid in the first place. If you can't raise it, don't produce it. Simple as that. So it's idiotic.