Hmmm...Abortion's an open sore kinda topic, being that so many people feel so many different ways about it. Is it a moral dilemma that only the person going through it should face, or is it an issue that every Joe Blow idiot on the street should wave their opinion at? Many theories abound on when a zygote becomes a human being, and many heated words are thrown around about exactly how long this process takes. If you take all the emotion out of the issue, there are a couple of dispassionate ways to look at it.

1) The only people that should have any say in the matter, on a case per case basis, is the two that were originally involved in the impregnation process. They are the only people that in the end, have to live through the process directly, and live with the consequences of their actions. 

2) If you have an abortion because you just can't be bothered to use birth control, there is something SEVERELY wrong with the way you view life from a moral standpoint. I could see if there were REALLY extenuating circumstances how somebody could have two abortions, MAYBE three, but more than that is just lazy, careless, and incompetent. There are MANY methods of birth control available nowadays so you don't have to rely on just one that keeps failing, and many sterilization procedures also exist for those too lazy to continue using condoms, dermal implants or ingestion of birth control pills. 

That's it. I don't have the right to judge anybody else, but I damn sure have the right to judge MYSELF and my actions. Nobody else has the right to tell me what to do with MY body, whether there are laws stating that they do or not. For all of you Fundamentalist Bible Thumpers out there, remember free will? Didn't God give us free will so that we could learn all of life's lessons for ourselves? If so, why do you feel the need to take it away? Could it be that you're *GASP* disguising your disgust with the practice as having a valid religious origin? Not like it would be the first time... 

I'm fairly passionate about this particular subject, so now that I've given the dispassionate view, I think it's time for me to get to the meat of the issue as I see it. After all, that's why you're reading this, isn't it? 

It is my opinion that abortions need to stay legal. I say this because I personally know several people that HAD to have abortions back in the day when they were outlawed, and the stories that these women had to lay on the table were HARROWING. Clothes hangers don't even begin to describe the butchery that these women had to go through. Whether they were cutting themselves up to abort, or they went to some sham "doctor" who used rudimentary surgical tools (not to mention the fact that they probably weren't familiar with even rudimentary sterilization procedures) in a dirty abandoned building, only to wait it out on a stained mattress letting the fluids drain out of them slowly through inserted tubes that were edible in case the cops busted in on them. Ignoring this fact KILLS PEOPLE. So many of the people trying to get anti-abortion legislation passed just gloss over this and many other ugly facts so that they can sleep at night knowing that they've forced people to "live right". It's something they don't want to have to think about, so why not just make it illegal? That'll stop it...right?

NOT 

Making something like this illegal is NEVER an effective deterrent. It just encourages more of the seedy underground that already exists to grow more rapidly to expand into that particular area. Keeping it legal at least assures that the women that are in dire need get the care that they need instead of getting sent to some street butcher. 

If you're a male, and happen to be reading through this, the next few paragraphs are not meant to attack or debase men. I like men...I just don't think that they should have a say in the abortion issue at all unless they THEMSELVES happen to be the contributor of the Y chromosome in the PARTICULAR fetus that's going to be aborted. I realize this is a broad sweeping generalization, but it's how I feel. To become even broader with the brush, I don't think ANYBODY has a viable say in this issue unless they're DIRECTLY involved (ie: the MOMMY or the DADDY) The only deciding voices should be on a case per case basis, and they should only be coming from the couple involved. 

Now...to direct the scalding torch of criticism towards those feeble, weak little unimaginative people that feel it their duty to extinguish the lives of the nurses and doctors that perform abortive procedures. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth went out with the Old Testament, you idiots...in almost every religion, vengeance is to be meted out by a higher being than ourselves, so why the hell do these people feel this BURNING need to blow things up, kill, and cause general mayhem to save a life, that if saved, would probably grow up to be another Ed Gein or John Wayne Gacy because it was horribly mistreated and abused? If they're so goddamn set on saving the life of this "unborn child" why don't they raise it when it's born? It's interesting to note, that whenever this is brought up to all those pickters shoving jars of pickled dead babies in the faces of the crying women trying to get to the clinic, that their response is "Well, that's not the issue here...". 

Uh, actually, it is. 

Added 1.21.99

If you want to see how heinous these fundie assholes can get, check out The Nuremberg Files,., a site that calls itself:

'A coalition of concerned citizens throughout the USA is cooperating in collecting dossiers on abortionists in anticipation that one day we may be able to hold them on trial for crimes against humanity.'

This website now has two factions, Planned Parenthood (along with several abortion doctors) and some of the most rabid anti-abortion protestors, sitting in court over whether this site is protected by the first amendment. Lawyers for the Doctors and members of Planned Parenthood are saying that it's a veiled invitation to murder anybody deemed "Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity". It's a pretty detailed site, asking for IN DEPTH details about doctors, nurses, escorts and their families. It also asks supporters to try to come up with: 

• "Photos or videotapes of the abortionist, their car, their house, friends, and anything else of interest (as many and as recent as possible)" and 
• "Current and past personal data including date and place of birth, home and business addresses and phone numbers, Social Security numbers, automobile plate numbers, names and birthdates of spouse(s), children and friends"

Added 12.24.02

Looking at The Nuremberg Files today, I've noticed that they now have something called the 'Live Web Cam Project':

"People will locate themselves outside baby butcher businesses across the nation and film the people coming and going. We presently have a group of sidewalk counselors who are committed to launching the project. We want to connect with every baby butcher business in the nation so we can catalog the people who go out to kill God's little babies."

It was also fairly horrifying that some 'Christian' groups were using the 'possible Anthrax attacks by terrorists' as a vehicle for peppering a bunch of Abortion Clinics with unusual envelops that contained 'unidentified substances' - but not really surprising. Fundamentalists will go to any lengths to promote their twisted agenda, no matter what the 'religion' they use as their shield.
 

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