Abortion

First I have to agree that under most circumstances (rape, health problems and the like being exceptions) I consider abortion to be wrong.
I also agree that in some circumstances it is equivilant to murder.
I am also pro-choice.
I beleive that before the fetus has a functioning brain it is not alive and, therefore, can be aborted without any other circumstances. After that, I think that it gets trickier.
I know that some people will say that it's alive from the moment of conception, but the only thing that really supports that is religious beleifs and that cannot be taken into consideration when passing laws.

I agree that live is precious, but what of women who have been raped? What if one day you were leaving the supermarket and someone shoved you into their car and raped you and you became pregnant? What if you were a fifteen year old girl who was raped by her father or grandfather or uncle and you became pregnant? You life has not even begun and now you are responsible for the life of a child created in terror, pain, and betrayal. You may even be looking forward to college, an honor roll student, and now your entire life will be removed from it's positive track because of actions beyond your control. I agree that adoption is an option . . . but what happens to these children? Not all turned over to the state have happy endings. It is far too easy create that spark and a very long, painful and difficult journey through pregnancy. Even if you adopt, nearly a year of your life is put on hold. And what of these children? What will their life be like? Will the mothers keep them in poverty, since they cannot get a "good" job without education? Will they let their family take care of the child while they pursue a career? If they do, will that child have to experience the same trauma their mother endured? What happens to the child left for adoption? What happens to the mother? Does anyone look positively on someone who gives up a child for adoption, any more than they do one who has an abortion? What happens to the mother who gives that child up for adoption as a teen when she gets older and more responsible, marries and has a child, then files for divorce and loses that child because the fact she gave up one is used to prove she is unfit? What if that mother is truly caring and responsible for her second child, but could not afford to care for the first? Children are precious. I was once told that someone wanted to have a child so they could give it a better life than they had themselves. I have met many children who were adopted that became bitter because their birth mother did not "want" them. Is that a better life? I have known people who had children with terrible diseases, that would leave a short and painful life, and could not choose abortion. Is a life made of only pain, surgery, and drain upon the lives of others a better life?

I just can't see forcing victims of rape and incest or parents of children who will not live to see adulthood and possibly even understand that they are alive to carry through with a pregnancy with disastrous results. If a dog is hit by a car and is left blind, with no motor skills, and must be fed on a tube we give it a gentle death. If a child is born with no motor skills and must be fed on a tube all it's life we are supposed to be charged with murder? Where is the compassion for the suffering of these children? Is it right that we would think more of the suffering of an animal than that of a child? Where is the compassion for these victims? Why should we force them to endure that pain, the financial drain, the shame and the misery of bringing forth a child of abuse? If your own daughter was raped and with child, would you want her young life in danger because of the trauma she experienced?

Not all abortions are actions of selfish young women who do not want to be burdened with the responsibility of children. I think it is right to count the murder you mentioned as the murder of two rather than one, but I cannot agree that every abortion is a heartless murder.

I believe that one can be charged with the murder of an unborn child only after that child has reached a gestational stage in which he/she can survive outside of the womb, which would be why the man in question was charged with murder.

"Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you." - Kahlil Gibran

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." Isaac Asimov

I have asked the same question multiple times. How can someone charge a man with duel murder for killing a woman and an unborn child yet turn around and the same person is for abortion. Split personality is what people define it as nowadays. A person who can do one thing and the same day do something so opposite is classified as a sufferer of split-personality. So why are we not diagnosing our lawyers and judges with this disease???