Legal

I don't understand how someone would want (force even) another person to have a baby, unless they were planning on taking care of it themselves. Foster homes are shit ime. If the woman does not want to have/raise a child, then what should we expect from it?

I know someone who has had multiple miscarries and abortions, the most recent at 12+ weeks along. I think it's disgusting behavior, no doubt. But the way she treats her current child now is not too positive, imo. I don't think she needs another. She doesn't want another. Especially from some other guy that won't be interested til who knows when. Would it somehow be 'better' or more 'whole' to let the child be born? There are situations worse then hers. She does have a home and a job, an education, etc, but that's only part of the equation.

How about it's illegal for men to ejaculate unless into a partner or donation cup? If you would prefer abortion to be illegal, are you trying to protect all life?

this is a difficult task to solve - but I see the possibility of solving that case: DNA tests.
Society needs a reboot! An integretion of higher values combined with science!
No more lies, no more hypothesises labeled as the absolute truth!

We need answers - we need change
and abortion won't be a difficult issue at all! Cause everybody will take care of the children of this new empire!

..this is 1 of the posts that won me over to registering
a truly intelligent & enlightened active community..thank u all..

i just wanted to add (stating my position as thoughtful pro-choice):
i think entheogens (dmt in particular) can amplify a feeling of sensing unborn 'spirit's, which may lead
to greater trauma or serious after-reflection following an abortion.
at least with widend perceptions and feelings we can more understand our values, or process our decisions...

great forum..keep it up nexians!

I feel this should remain legal as long as it isn't done too far into conception. My mother used to have many abortions after my sister and I were born because of my father's lack of safe contraception practices(don't tell me how I know this...). All those abortions could have been more little brothers or sisters but... they weren't anything except potential lives. Just as we kill these potential being, nature lays waste to million upon million every time a male ejaculates or a female completes her cycle. It's all fair game after all, we disintegrate back into the same place after death.

All we have to look forward to are resource wars, overpopulation, one child policy, a slimming demographic of families to raise kids. If we taught ethics and morality pertaining toward the sacredness of life with a glean of realism aimed at insuring responsible would be parents understand their duty to provide a better existence for their children then they were given, then abortion still makes sense, but the number of abortions should be diminished. I'm not saying every sperm is sacred. I remember overhearing conversations going on while I was in my mothers womb, but after seeing how much love she has given me after all these years I would have respected "as a spirit" her taking my life if she decided "now's not the time" and she aborted me. Perhaps my perspective is skewed because I'm a male, perhaps I have no right to express myself, but I feel that in order for the tightly knit cloth that is culture to keep those who will be born into this world (and wanted) with a fighting chance, we can't allow would be dead beat parents (who rightfully admit they would be dead beat and want an abortion) to bring into this world when faced with what kind of world they are entering. The planet is becoming a dead beat dad. & for all those intelligent couples who would want an abortion who could rightfully afford it, but don't want a child for other reasons, I'm still leaning more strongly down for women's rights so far as it is within the confines of a time limit to where the surgery does not threaten the life of the women, or that it is so far along in the pregnancy that moral concerns ensue. There are so many socioeconomic and cultural factors at play with this one that you will never please everybody but the "quality of life for those who are living", and the "quality of life for the planet we live on" and the "natural rights inherent a woman feels entitled to for her body" I believe outweigh those who want their laws to walk all over someone else's rights. People who say "There ought to be a law!" are the reason why all the silly laws get enacted in the first place. I see restrictions of rights one more contributing factor towards social unrest in the long run with how the U.N. is trying to run things and how the carbon taxing is coming along. Politics should have nothing to do with this, but economy of movement when it comes to biodiversity of our planet which is impacted by the total human footprint combined with the moral and civic duty of having around enough intelligent competent adults contributing to the gene pool one has to wonder where all this will end when the unintelligent people don't breed like in that movie "Idiocracy" and the smart people abstain because of their moral reservations and the world becomes over ran by mongrels. Without Choice for Abortion, it very well may get that way & then we are looking at a thinning out of the gene pool to boot. =)

Given the controversial nature of this issue I'm really surprised by the almost complete consensus here. 27 to 1

I would posit that this is a community that understands all too well that criminalizing human action does not put an end to that action, but rather forces it underground into dark and dangerous realms.

Condoms
Birth control

if somehow a baby still results?
maybe its time to ask..
what kind of life could we give this baby?
do we have the resources to support it?
could we find someone to adopt right away? or would the child live in an orphanage for 10 years?
If we kept it, would we give it the love and care a baby needs?

Anywhere this post says we, can be replaced with I.
as the carrier, I believe its ultimately the women's choice.

I don't know if this is truth: As much as I'd prefer to live in a healthy society without limitation by law I have to state: There have to be laws! But: Reasonable ones, which don't confine personal freedom!
Abortion confines the freedom of the unborn!

Legal has disadvantages, Illegal has maybe even more.
I can't decide.

But I just don't see it reasonable to grant women the right to kill their own baby!

Alright

before I heat up the discussion even more

peace ;D

Before aya and dmt i would have said legal but after what i have seen i must say all life is sacred so i say illegal now, that is my two cents.

Right, that was my point. We are all forced to live under prohibitionist policies, so we should have a general understanding that when you make criminal actions that are not, the actions don't just go away. I think it's safe to say abortion isn't going to stop just because you pass legislation against it. What's more, if abortion became illegal, many women placed in the position of having a child they can't support/weren't ready to have would still elect to have such procedures done, but now they would be of the "back alley" variety.

Abortion? I'm for it.

It should explain: cactophage has aborted. They were using condoms, but pregnancy occurred nonetheless. It regrets that the necessity arose, and certain circumstances surrounding the sitation, but not the act of abortion itself.

Cactophage was barely able to take care of itself at the time, let alone a tiny human; it was in a casual relationship. Nothing added up. To keep it would have been a disaster. It would have been like buying a puppy because it was being mistreated by the pet shop, even though your house is full of hungry giant eagles and you don't have enough money for booze, let alone dog food.

Fuck that. There are too many people as it is to go having entire people by mistake. If and when cactophage has offspring, they will be in a far better position than their proto-sibling would.

So yeah, I'm for it.

Some great points from SnozzleBerry, Orion, and clouds to name a few.

Keep in mind that beneficent nature has proliferated naturally occurring abortificants throughout her botanical treasury. Governments are wiser than the creative and intelligent web of life, you suppose?

From our vantage point the CEO/COO of the universe - whether you believe it to be sentient or random - and/or Nature herself seem to be very comfortable with death... To restate: "God is very comfortable with death." We, on the otherhand, and apart from any natural internal bias, have been taught to glorify birth and abhor death. In nature's own design, death is present every step of the way: in the abundant rain forest, for example, one out of every hundred trees will be choked out and die prematurely for the one that thrives, survival of the fittest, like it or not. Thimk, too, of all those human eggs and sperm that pulsed with life and raced toward destiny only to be cheated of a shot at the bigtime: conscious life on Earth.

Women struggle with the horror of abortion in part b/c of many societal pressures, and out of societal belief in the gravitissuedissed opportunity in the non-abundant/scarce universe that consensus mankind believes in. What matters is not whether one person lives or for how long, but that each sentient being - incarnate or inincarnate - grows, develops, matures, evolves into an empowered, loving participant. The universe is bigger, and richer in opportunity, than our egos make it out to be. Regarding almost any opportunity, you could just as easily be damned if either you do or you don't - you can have a tragedy either way. In an infinite, eternal universe, victimization is only a myth (or a state of mind)... In a finite and deteriorating universe, abortion (and all things) are ultimately inconsequential, if only a memory-less void is finally left standing. Either way, belief in victimization should be checked and swapped for more useful perspectives. A woman, a man, an unborn spirit are all more resourceful than we think! Let's grant them the freedom even to fail and learn, without assuming we can accurately judge someone else's experience a failure... when we have our ownselves to raise.

Let's aim less for a stronger patriarchal governmental force, and more for the growth of wisdom in ourselves and our nieghbors! I for one do not presuppose myself more qualified than my neighbor to make her choices for her. I like to think we are moving beyond fascism sooner or later... You?

It says "gravitissuedissed" where it should read "societal belief in the gravity of missed opportunity in this non-abundant/scarce universe that consensus mankind believes in. "

I have no idea what the word gravitissuedissed means.

Also:
I know two women who claim to have CHOSEN to trigger an autonomic abortive response through the power of conscious awareness. And one of them did this in tandem with going into the nonphysical dimension and talking with the soul of the would be child, who was just an opportunistic soul - as we all are - looking for a ticket to ride the earth once mo'again. It was to this woman that I subsequently turned when dealing with an unintended prego myself... easy-peezy she said, stating my intention in the presence of her mediation to the unborn soul, and presto = miscarriage! Facilitating friend said in advance of such proven result that it's easy-peezy 'cuz a our conscious choice is as valuable as can be, and therefore no other soul would ever wish to trump it. No doctors, nor pharma, needed at all. "With harm to none," as the saying goes. Just human potential being realized, stage by stage. The trick is becoming more fully conscious (of WTF is exactly going on)... It's things like this that hint that the unreality of psychospace is maybe not so unreal after all, as many a deemster or nexian would attest!

Beautifully stated!

Death is just as sacred as Life. If you consider either sacred at all.