One of my best friends when I was growing up was adopted. He seemed pretty happy. He was even adopted by a single woman. Never heard a complaint from either of them.
A girl I knew in high school got pregnant and a junior and decided to give her baby up for adoption. Within a month or so, a family was found and they became active in the pre-natal care, helping out with things and then adopted the child right off the bat.
The high school I went to was one of the better public schools in the state, plenty of donations and funding from rich families and crap (I hated that place). They had an unwritten policy... "if you get pregnant, we don't want you here, we have an image to keep." I knew a couple girls that got pregnant, and were pressured by the administration until they had enough and left for the "backup" school. There was another high school a few miles away where the kids that couldn't get better than Cs, had behavioral problems, etc were sent to, and that's where the girls would end up. This school is about as low end as you'll find round there, and the only alternative to the school I went to without moving and changing districts.
So... fawk up your education, be kicked out of a school with a 98% graduation rate and put in a school with a 45% grad rate, carry it around for 9 months and lose your friends and social life (which IMO is pretty important to developing social skills for life), go through labor and child birth and all those other great things that make me glad I'm a guy, just to give the damn thing away? Or terminate the group of cells early on, make peace with your decision, learn from it and move on?
No matter what, the argument boils down to two main issues:
- When does life actually begin? Whether you care about a half formed fetus or not, is it a life? Give me some science to back it up. From what I've read, science goes back and forth on the subject. Again, if there's a chance that is actually a baby, do you really want to kill it?
- Personal responsibility. If you're grown enough to do what makes babies, you're grown enough to know the risks and the means to avoid those risks.
I disagree. It's not so much "when does life begin," but rather "at what point is that life form a person, and has the rights that go with it."
I think we can all agree that a group of a few dozen cells that will likely become a baby is by scientific terms life. But is that group of a few dozen cells any different than a few dozen cells that might become a dog, or a horse, or a tree? And if so, how? At that point in time it's just a few cells with no distinguishable characteristics of anything... yes, it has the
potential to become a baby, but legally you can't make convictions based upon potential.
Personally, I support abortions as long as they fit these criteria:
1. It isn't being done as retroactive birth control and the mother hasn't had an abortion before... first time, fine, accidents happen, but twice and you're just dumb (excluding medical reasons, rape, and incest).
2. At 45 days, the skeleton is complete, reflexes are present, and the fetus
begins to show signs of brain function (waves are recorded).
Prior to that, it's a collection of cells that, under any other circumstance, would be classified as a tumor. After that, it's an almost-person with brain activity, and ending that life is not very different than ending the life of a 5 year old, a 15 year old, or a 50 year old person.
atriot:
