Writer adds thoughts on the abortion issue
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Michael Ragland
Published: April 19, 2008
The abortion issue has been tallied about in the Potomac News by readers submitting their thoughts on the subject. I thought I’d add my own. Abortion is a complex issue but I side with a women’s choice, even knowing some women oppose abortion. First, there is the question of life versus sentience, or the capacity to feel pain. While it is true we don’t know exactly when a embryo/fetus experiences sentience, it likely isn’t when the sperm and egg first fuse. There is general agreement the fetus has sentience some stage in the second and third trimester.
The second issue is quality of life. What if the mother is not equipped and fit to be a mother and her offspring would suffer terribly under her; there are routine cases of leaving newborns out in the trash, in the toilet or thrown down an incinerator. The response to those countering these occurrences is adoption, but that is not always an option, especially when the newborn is already dead. In some cases lack of availability of abortion may lead to infanticide .
Ideally, more use of condoms would be taught. In this country they are widely available so stupidity is the only excuse, but in Africa where there is rampant AIDS the Vatican pushes strongly against condom usage. Certainly this results in further spread of the disease.
There are plenty of birth control methods out there; IUD, Norplant, the Pill, Preven/Plan B, sterilization etc. The focus should be on prevention and not abortion, which is defacto an unwanted pregnancy.
The best way to be pro-life is to support birth control or be monogamously married and have many kids.
Finally, there are far too many people in the world; if trends continue we’ll be elbow to elbow in less than a thousand years. Birth control, as well as preventing abortions, is also an excellent way to manage family size.
MICHAEL RAGLAND
Triangle
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Posted by ( barnun ) on April 28, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Ron,
I’m certainly all for lowering the abortion rate. Overall it is a very sick and barbaric practice. Most vets will not spay a dog if she is already pregnant. So a vet will not do an abortion on a dog, but human doctors do it routinely like removing a wart.
The issue I have with the male responsibility is this: If the man wants the child and the female doesn’t, it still gets flushed. If the female wants the child and the male doesn’t, he gets to write checks for 18 yrs to fund the females desires, regardless of what the circumstances or understandings were at point of conception. That’s the double standard. The only way to change that is to give the male the right to stop any abortion and take full custody of the child. Pro Choice is not about equality, it’s about womens rights, rights to do whatever they so desire.
Since the time of Roe V Wade, abortion has been a sheild from responsibilty. Our society has changed much since that time with that decision playing a role. there were 615,000 abortions done in the US in 1973 and 1,293,000 in 2004. Think about that, 1.3 million lives terminated in just one year. In the past, morality was the only real deterrent from unplanned pregnancy. We’re not allowed to discuss that anymore because to many people think that would mean religion determining our course. I guess those same people would then have to say that morality Only comes from religion. It comes from a general consensus in our society. So now we have the easy out of abortion, opening the door to no responsiblities and free sex for everyone, starting at about the age of 11 these days. Of course this opens to door to many things worse than abortion, including the fact that the laws have been twisted to now protect child molestors. That kind of makes Roe V Wade a sort of Pandora’s box. Abortion is also a major ethinic cleansing tool, most do not discuss. Blacks and Hispanic women average twice as many abortions as caucasion women. The US should initiate a massive “just say no” media campaign marketed to our youth.
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Posted by ( Ragland ) on April 26, 2008 at 12:59 am
You write, “Posted by ( barnun ) on April 25, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Ragland, you present a double standard. you say the woman has the ultimate right to decide and yet the man bears responsiblity. This is a completely seperate arguement that most will not tackle.“
If that is accurate it is unfortunate. No woman is a virgin Mary; a male partner is required at the very least as a sperm donor. But since the man can impregnate the woman he does indeed bear some responsibility. The reason the woman has the ultimate choice is because she bears part of his progeny in her body. Both partners should take “preventive” measures if neither want a baby. This isn’t confusing to me. Historically, women have been denied in many parts of the world; even today and bad in many places. The civil rights of women is another issue interlinked with the abortion issue.
I didn’t mean to insinuate the man bears part of the responsibility for whether a woman chooses an abortion but financially he could pay for that possibly if the woman has no money or insurance for such a procedure.
There are also cases where a woman will become pregnant and will want the baby but the man donor doesn’t want it. In such a situation I believe the woman should have the choice of whether to terminate a pregnancy.
To some extent the traditional family, at least in the U.S., is under assault; children in foster homes; adoption, stepfamilies, etc., etc.
Alas, the issue of abortion is not a simple issue. The most important thing is not to overturn Roe versus Wade. Currently, in the U.S. there are safeguards and the rule of law and abortion is legal in the U.S. But if the wrong group of people in power or in the Supreme Court they could reverse the decision.
That is why I take nothing for granted and there is a percentage of U.S. citizens who would ban abortion in all cases except in incest and rape.
But you’re likely correct some readers may not be able to tackle the concept the man bears some responsibility as well as the female.
In some sub-cultures in the U.S. it is a source of machismo pride to knock up as many women as possible and leave unwed mothers; they’re basically just sperm donors. These are cultural trends which need changing which impact upon the issue of abortion.
There has been so much focus on abortion when my message is primarily PREVENTION. What can be done across the board to lower rates of abortion and what do we do with the waste; stem cell research?
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Posted by ( barnun ) on April 25, 2008 at 11:33 am
Ragland, you present a double standard. you say the woman has the ultimate right to decide and yet the man bears responsiblity. This is a completely seperate arguement that most will not tackle.
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Posted by ( Ragland ) on April 24, 2008 at 8:24 am
To Ed Winking:
I believe whether birth control is used is ideally a dual decision by the man and woman while I do believe a woman has the ultimate right to do what she wants if she has a unwanted pregnancy. Man contributes spermatozoon and definitely bears responsibility in my view whether a woman becomes pregnant. In turn if a woman and man is practicing “casual sex” it is important they remind each other to wear protection.
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Posted by ( Sam B ) on April 21, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Bravo, Mr. Ragland, for raising an issue that never seems to come up in the abortion debate. With contraception widely available and inexpensive, if not free, why are there enough unintentional pregnancies in this country for abortion to even warrant media attention? Perhaps it is the theory that simply spending a couple of health classes telling teenagers not to have sex will overpower all the force of hormones. By all means tell them that abstinence is the only 100% effective method of preventing pregnancy and STDs, but we need to recognize that some are going to decide to have sex no matter what anyone says and let them know that there are means available to make it less risky.
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Posted by ( barnun ) on April 21, 2008 at 10:59 am
I dont beleive Mr Ragland advocated anything outside of following the law. I think it’s fair for those who oppose any law to work to change it as long as they follow it in the mean time. It was questioned at which point does the unborn child feel pain. Partial birth abortion allows termination right up throught the full 9 months. Teh child travels the birth canal for natural child birth, stopped just short of being born, gets a hold drilled in it’s head and it’s brains sucked out. why stop there ? It’s a womans choice, let her kill her kids at any age. Physical birth control helps but our society is now severly absent the mental birth control. It’s called morality. Unfortunately to many people associate this as religion. Our kids today lack the same morality that our grandparents grew up with. Kids in middle school are having sex, where do you suppose they’ve learned that this is ok ?
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Posted by ( edwinking ) on April 21, 2008 at 9:46 am
Amazing how men feel quite competent to tell women what to do. As soon as I get pregnant I will decide the issue for my self. For the republicans it is a political issue as is social security for the democrats.
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Posted by ( mongoose ) on April 20, 2008 at 9:43 am
fortunately Michael, the issue is not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be. we have the powerful, vocal Rule of Law folks on our side and as everyone knows, Rule of Law is the rule of the land. no changes, no compromises, just follow the law as it is on the books today.
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