Welcome to Gaia! ::

after reading the first post, i feel both enlightened, and disgusted on the subject gonk

normally i'm against abortion. i decided to go against abortion because one of my friends i made up here in college was nearly aborted. i can't even begin imagine how things would've been different if i had never met her sweatdrop

but hearing about how they do that is just plain messed up. the baby is being born! it's not still "unliving" just because half of its body is outside of his (or her) mother's womb. and a baby isn't unliving if they're inside their mother's womb and giving vital signs of life.

i'm not thinking of children's rights entirely here. i'm thinking of everyone's God-given right to live. killing a child through this partial abortion way is just plain ******** up Dx i think Congress made a good decision on this matter. if someone wanted to get an abortion, there are much better ways of doing it than brutally destroying the child as its being born

yeah, but that's NOT what the majority of late-term abortions are used for.

you should check my post on page uuuum...five? i think... sweatdrop

Anyone wanting me to move this to Extended Discussion?

Or should we leave it where it is? 3nodding

i'm not involving myself in an online debate about abortion because its highly unlikely that whatever anyone says here will change anyone else's opinion, and its rather akin to peeing up a pole, imho.

however, i would like to put the following info out there:

the term "partial-birth abortion" is NOT the correct medical term. its actually a term created by a pro-life republican congressman to characterize ALL late-term abortions, of which there are several kinds.

late-term abortions were, even before this new law, NOT performed on normal, healthy mothers with normal, healthy fetuses but ONLY on those who either discovered a severe abnormality ((like clover-leaf syndrome)) in the child too late OR when the baby was already dead.

the whole "brain suction" part is only so that the baby's head will collapse and pass through the cervix. it is NOT done to kill the baby, since the baby is already dead at that point anyway. ((even when the mother wasn't carrying a dead fetus and its instead done to terminate a child with an abnormality, its all handled BEFORE the actual extration part begins.))

late-term abortions are 1.4% of all abortions performed.

the original reason that late-term abortions were created was so that the mother did not have to go into actual labor to expell a dead fetus, and so the parents would have a body to mourn over ((previous methods included cutting the fetus into pieces for easier extration)).

and finally, no respectable doctor who wishes to keep his medical lic. will perform a late-term abortion without A REALLY GOOD MEDICAL REASON.

in other words, ho's don't run around getting them for shits and giggles.

that is all. heart

EDIT:

i also forgot.

for all the cries of "BUT IT COULD BE ADOPTED!!!" i'd like to put out there that there are currently over 500,000 kids in america's foster care/adoption program. and of those children in the programs, only 16% are actually adopted.

so, what are YOU doing to help those kids?

((and i'm probably sticking my foot in this debate sortof, but oh well.))

i think anyone who says "OMG IT COULD BE ADOPTED!!!" shouldn't say it unless THEY'RE willing to adopt, and lemme tell ya, its not easy.

my sister is currently trying to adopt because she can't have kids ((they've tried four times with fertility treatments)), and OMG the paperwork and the classes and the investigations and the interviews are CRAZY! sweatdrop