www.talkcyprus.org

[Leon]

Of late, the whole issue of abortion has really fascinated and interested me. Since I am writing a thesis on the subject, I have delved into all the grey areas of abortion, such as teenage pregnancy, (acceptable) reasons for abortion, multiple abortions etc. and I have somewhat dramatically changed my whole view on it; I also believe there is a very thin line between pro-life and pro-choice.

Not only that, the realisation of how many people do actually terminate pregnancies is becoming more vivid to me; many of my female friends at school have aborted (one has just had her second abortion a few weeks ago (she is 15)), family members have opened up to me, amongst other figures I have seen and read (in Russia most pregnancies end in abortion. A woman in Russia will have four abortions on average throughout her lifetime).

So, before I express my opinion(s), I would like to know yours. If you could answer the following:

Does a woman have the right to abort given certain circumstances only or for whatever reason suits her?

Do you believe the legal guardians of teenagers should be informed if their daughter is having an abortion?

What is your view on multiple abortions (from two terminations onwards)?

Thanks a lot.

Leon (PS going to Cyprus on 15th December :D :D :D).

[Dream_Merchant]

Leon wrote:
Does a woman have the right to abort given certain circumstances only or for whatever reason suits her?


I dont buy this right of the unborn child business. It is always the parents choice. Mind the deviation here, because I do beleive the father has as much say in the matter as the mother. If they disagree, then the error goes to life instead of death. However, under special circumstances, the fathers right is annuled and only the mother decides.

Of course with the power to decide, comes the responsibility of choice and the cost to yourself. Abortion is not something you do casually, but the burden, when applies, should be carried by the agreed parties and not punished or forbidden by law.

Leon wrote:
Do you believe the legal guardians of teenagers should be informed if their daughter is having an abortion?


More than informed. As much as a teenager can not be held responsible at a court of law, so can she he decide on such a matter. With power comes responsibility, but also without responsibility one should not have power.
The parents decide, and in this decision they bind themselves to be the guardians of the child until a time when the parents can and wish to support the child.

Leon wrote:
What is your view on multiple abortions (from two terminations onwards)?


Barring special circumstances, after the first abortion, you are forced to attend lessons on safe sex, contraception and childcare. Not something that should be repeated, but if it gets repeated.. one cant discriminate so heavily. Hm.. what about a government tax on abortion, barring special circumstances. Something like the inverse of having more children gives you tax reduction, having abortions penalises you.

The key is think before you act and act responsibly.

Leon wrote:
Thanks a lot.


thank you too.. just my thoughts, hope they are useful

[stavrizatz]

I have for guidelines in disission making - nature but nature does not provide answers. Nature shows the path that we might chose to follow and that path is safer and closer to reality, I think. Abortions are not natural so I believe abortions should be avoided as much as possible but there are circumstances where abortions might be important (eg. rape). Well it is different for women who are in serious relationships, to those cases where unwanted pregnancy comes from casual sex. To answer question 1, i think it is better only in certain circumstances, but the parents should also have some degree of freedom of choice. For sure abortion shouldn't be encoureaged by doctors.


Actually I wonder if you know Leon what are the main reasons for abortions.

Q1. Does a woman have the right to abort given certain circumstances only or for whatever reason suits her?

Q2. Do you believe the legal guardians of teenagers should be informed if their daughter is having an abortion?

The legal guardians should be informed, but what happens if the teenage daughter wants to keep it secret from her parents... I don't know.

Q3. What is your view on multiple abortions (from two terminations onwards)?

Inresponsible in most cases, in other cases extremly unlucky.

A friend of mine sais that there is no much difference between destroying an embryo and killing a newborn child! I remain neutral on that.

[Leon]

Hi and thanks for replying. I will give my opinion on the subject...

Well, I used to be extremely pro-life. I learned that embryoes and foetuses contain human DNA so abortions kills a human (murder), and believed that it was unacceptable to take an innocent life whatever the circumstances.

However, then I looked at what philosophers have said makes personhood, and none of which matched what a foetus knows to do. Not only that, I read a very clever 'life' scenario which can be compared to abortion exactly: imagine if somebody was physically attatched to you via tubes and had to feed and live off your body for nine months in order to survive (should you remove the tubes, the other person dies, after the nine months s/he will be fit and well again and will no longer need to use your body). If you remove the tubes (inevitably resulting in the other person's death), you are not a murderer. You are simply denying somebody else access to your body, which only you have a right to. Same goes for abortion. No woman should be compelled to carry a parasite (yes, foetuses are parasites, since they require feeding from and inhabiting a woman's womb to live) if she doesn't want to. She has the choice. But forced abortion is just as bad as forced birth, in my opinion. Pro-life is actually pro-birth. They do not seem to care for the women's lives, do they?

Having said that, I know plenty of staunch pro-choicers who would never abort - and that is their choice.

So, in light of that (a woman having the choice of what lives in her body), the reasons why a woman may terminate and how many times she does so is really not the point at all. Her body, her choice. I don't advocate abortion being treated as a form of contraception, however I (nor anybody) can force a woman to protect herself; we can only advise. And even if she does find herself pregnant nine times due to her carelessness, taking away her right to abort is totally unethical. On the other hand, I believe that the NHS should have to pay for, let's say, three social abortions, and then from then on be allowed to refuse providing the cash for any more (so the female can go private if she really wants an abortion). This would also shake up many of the careless individuals who think it's OK to just sponge off free healthcare for their mistakes. I am not in any way denying the woman's right to abort, but just letting the NHS decide on whether or not to pay for her fourth+ abortion.

And not all people who have multiple abortions are careless. I have corresponded with a 24-year old married woman who is adamant that she never wants children. She has had three terminations and wore contraception all times.

The irony is though, the actual abortions are not in any way careless; the unprotected sex is careless. Nor is abortion irresponsible. I actually believe abortion is very responsible (since the woman is resolving a situation (pregnancy) that she does not wish to find herself in). Let's take a woman, for example, who has had unprotected sex with five different men, got pregnant by these men, and aborted five times. People would consider her a very careless and irresponsible woman, yet if a different woman in exactly the same situation kept all five babies rather than terminating them, she is seen as brave more than anything because she is raising five children alone. Well, I beg to differ; yes, she is brave, but she is just as careless and irresponsible as the woman who terminated - because they both had unprotected sex! Abortions are not careless, people are.

So, to sum up, and answer my own questions:

I wrote: Does a woman have the right to abort given certain circumstances only or for whatever reason suits her?
Yes. Only she has the right to her body. If the reason is good enough for the woman, it is good enough to abort.

I wrote: Do you believe the legal guardians of teenagers should be informed if their daughter is having an abortion?
Very difficult, but no. Again, it is still the female's choice, whatever her age. She may be legally cared for by adults, but not legally owned! Although I would naturally like to know if my underage daughter was planning to abort, I do not think she has to tell me nor do I have the right to take control of her body.

I wrote: What is your view on multiple abortions (from two terminations onwards)?
Same as a single abortion. Woman's body, woman's choice. If a woman does not want something else living in and off her body, then she can abort. How many times she does this is totally irrelevant to the whole issue, in my opinion. Although it would be silly to have continuous unprotected sex to need to find yourself pregnant so many times, I would never force somebody to wear something, however I would strongly advocate it. And also, not all women who terminate more than once are promiscuous, careless whores, as they are most often portrayed. I'm indifferent to whether a woman has no abortions, one, or ten!

On the subject of whether there should exist paternal rights for the unborn, it is very tricky. As a male, I would like to think that what I say or think matters, although ultimately it is the woman's choice because it is her body. Foetuses do not occupy men's bodies, so they cannot enforce any final decision, just contribute to it. Personally, I would like to think that any female I happen to impregnate does not feel the need to terminate. I would definitely encourage her to keep it (even at my tender age of 15). I do not think there is anything wrong with issuing ultimatums on the male's behalf (i.e. saying to his partner "abort and we're over!").

I'll hush my mush now. Someone else's turn.

Leon.

[stavrizatz]

Thanks Leon, good analysis. I was a bit unclear on the subject but now I'll say that I agree with most of your points.

I think it is women's choice at the end of the day to abort but when I said only in certain circumstances, I mean only in certain circumstances the public health system should pay for abortions. Careless should not be covered by the public.

I wrote:
Quote: Q3. What is your view on multiple abortions (from two terminations onwards)?

Inresponsible in most cases, in other cases extremly unlucky.

Inresponsible when the couple didn't do what was reasonable to avoid unwanted pregnancy and unlucky once even protected sex is not 100% safe, but 99.% or something. So if it happens that the condom broke and if at the same time the man ejaculate inside and if it happened to be the conceiving period of the female and if the egg fuses with the sperm, then in this scenario the women is unlucky and not careless.

Leon wrote:
Quote: People would consider her a very careless and irresponsible woman, yet if a different woman in exactly the same situation kept all five babies rather than terminating them, she is seen as brave more than anything because she is raising five children alone. Well, I beg to differ; yes, she is brave, but she is just as careless and irresponsible as the woman who terminated - because they both had unprotected sex! Abortions are not careless, people are.

What if the second women made the choice to have children with 5 different men and that is what she wanted, then I don't think it is careless.

[Leon]

stavrizatz wrote: What if the second women made the choice to have children with 5 different men and that is what she wanted, then I don't think it is careless.
Yes, I agree, although it wasn't so clear I was referring to promiscuity.