South Dakota rules abortions illegial.

[Wanderer]

Look, I know this is way different from the usualk stuff that gets posted here, but you of all people really need to see this.

Washington Post Aritcle

[Shard]

Jeez....

Yet another reason why I always say:

I don't care which way you vote, but please just vote. Every time you can, whenever there's a public voice to be heard, if you don't voice your OWN opinion, others WILL do it for you.

I'm glad that the article stresses that it's a long shot that this law will continue or get in the way of any long lasting effect, but that it was set in motion at all is very disturbing to me. And yes, I believe that safe, legal abortions are absolutely necessary for any reason, I'm not restricted by any pressure of religion or social life about it. Don't want one? Don't have one... It's a problem only when politicians get involved with what ought to be a private decision between a woman and her doctor - or a woman and her god.

[JKatkina]

*froths*

"abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene."

What crack are these people on?! So, say, a thirteen year old child gets raped by her uncle and gets pregnant. You're going to make her carry her uncle's child to term -- probably irreversably screwing her and her education up, bringing yet another unwanted child into the world, not to mention punishing her for getting raped -- because doing otherwise would '[dilute] the bill and its impact'?

>:[

I'm sorry for getting on the soapbox, and mods, feel free to delete this if the Nexus still avoids talking about politics-and-religion, but. *twitch* Just... narrr.

[Shard]

Maybe we should have a forum area for it. Most of us at this point are more mature than we all used to be back at the KP group. I know many of us have different views on religion, politics, war, and such, but we *are* writers after all and perhaps a good place to vent might be nice.

Anyway ... yeah. I'm so sick of punsihing women for being women. Especially in this manner. Last week on tv there was that show Boston Legal which kind of covered this sort of event, a girl wasn't given emergency contraception after being raped because of the doctor's religious belief. That's a concern I see popping up all over the place too, Walmart pharmacies for instance...

Anyway, If the other mods feel it inappropriate we can archive this, but my vote is to add a new 'heavily moderated' area.

[JKatkina]

I would be thrilled to have a place for a bit of politico-talk or even debate myself. o.O That way people who don't want to read it don't have to check that area of the forum, and those of us who enjoy a healthy flexing of opinions now and then can jump right in. :3

Speaking of opinion-flexing...

Ooh, refusing to give out contraceptives. That's another thing that gets my goat. Way to reinforce that conception that sex is wrong, while also refusing to do anything practical about it. I mean, people will have sex. This is a fact dating back to forever. The smart ones will try and use contraceptives, protection, etc, until some pharmacist decides to punish them for trying to be safe. (I do understand religious beliefs as a basis for personal decisions, and that I have no problem with as beliefs are such an intensely personal thing, but I will never, ever endorse religion as a way to make other people's decisions FOR them.) What is that telling young people? "Don't even bother trying with safe sex, because it's more important to pretend to the world that you're not having sex than it is to be safe".

Even more arg-inducing is people who won't give out contraceptives and THEN ask why so many women want abortions. It's basically damned if you do, damned if you don't. >E

[Shiolar]

I'm gonna add a few thoughts here... including some slight sitting-on-the-fence-ness, because I can see two sides of it. But beware of my opinionated-ness.

On one hand, making 'casual' abortion illegal makes sense. If you're raped or whatever, then abortion should be legal. But there's so many girls around here who're too stupid to use contraceptives. They get the attitude of "Hey, it doesn't matter if I get pregnant, because I can just get an abortion." It hardly encourages safe sex, or intelligent thought, for that matter. Allowing people to just get an abortion because they were stupid enough to get pregnant in the first place only exacerbates the problem where no one ever considers the consequences of their actions.

And, of course, even in the event that you don't use contraception, or you're raped or whatever... whatever happened to the morning after pill? I'm sure pharmacists still sell those, and if not I'm sure the doctors can give them out. It's not that hard, really...

But, on the other hand, I'm totally sick and fed up of paying 25% of my wages into allowing some girl my age to sit around at home getting herself pregnant as often as she can so she can claim the child benefits. Didja know that over here a young woman with three kids and no job gets more money from the government than a married couple with three kids will get from both their jobs put together? So allowing abortions would stop all the stupid little girls who get themselves pregnant from being a further drain on the country's economy.

And a final point, just a little fact I picked up from a website somewhere. It kinda contrasts against the argument for abortion that says "well the foetus isn't really alive anyway." The youngest premature babies that actually survive to grow up are younger than the maximum age for abortion. So... a foetus at that age which is wanted and is born is counted as being alive, sentient, etc, but an unwanted foetus at the same stage of development is not? The complete lack of logic is rather astounding...

[JKatkina]

Drawing the 'oldest age possible' line is a very hard one. The problem with saying that a 'very early' (d'you have dates there? I'm curious about it. :3) foetus CAN survive outside the mother is that you have to also look at the quality of life the child will have. Your normal-average-premmie kid has a plethora of neurological and physical problems, more often than not, things that will make life a lot harder for it than for a child born on time. I'm not saying premmies don't have a right to at least try for life, but if you're saying instead of being aborted, these foetuses should be taken out of the mother and given a chance at life, you have to consider the problems you're going to saddle the child with physically, not to mention, psychologically if it is an unwanted child. (I admit adoption can help with the latter, but the honest truth is, most people don't want to, and in the end, just plain won't adopt 'imperfect' children.)

That's actually a big argument against anti-abortionists. They'll fight and fight to keep a child from being aborted, but as soon as it's born, poof, the kid doesn't seem to matter to them anymore. Nevermind if it lives a life of poverty, unwanted by its parents, etc etc. Quantity vs. quality.

Oh, the morning-after pill... the very sad thing about that is technically pharmasists carry it, but it's like any other contraceptive -- if the pharmacist or doctor disagrees with contraception personally, they often will not give it out regardless of the situation. So the women who are stuck without the options of the pill, an IUD, or even sterilization, are most often the ones who are also denied the morning-after pill.

It sucks. o.o

(<.< If I'm making an ass of myself, please tell me. >.o I don't want to get anyone annoyed at me, and I'll tone it down if I'm offending anyone.)

[Midori]

Your not Kat you're bringing up good ponits there are far to many unwanted children in this world. Which is wrong and why I've decied if I'm ever to have kids I'm adopting.

[Cacopheny]

Shiolar: I don't know about the UK, but in America, welfare (no matter how many kids you have) really isn't enough to get by on. It still puts a family below the level of poverty, income-wise. Kids are expensive, and welfare keeps getting slashed. And you can only qualify for welfare for a certain number of years, no matter whether your situation changes or not. Or that was the case when I learned about it in my social work class in college, a few years ago, anyway.

So really, no one is "sitting around trying to get pregnant as many times as they can" just to get money, over here. It would be stupid of them, and they know it. Besides, weigh the incredibly hard work it would be for the poor mothers, looking after so many children, against a very tiny stipend from the government. Most people go on welfare because they can't get a job, not because they don't want one.

And then if they do get a job and are forced to go off welfare, the job often doesn't pay for their needs, either.... v.v

So please, don't generalize like that. It isn't fair to people who have no other choice, and aren't really getting by even with that choice. Poverty is a big problem, and people who don't see both sides of the issue only make it worse.

Sorry for the aside and mini-rant. I'm not getting into the abortion issue, because I'm still working out where I stand on it ^^'

[Shiolar]

I'm pretty sure the date is something like 20-25 weeks as the maximum age for when a child can be aborted, and I know there's been premature babies younger than that. A school friend of mine had a younger sister who was born at 23 weeks. I certainly don't think that babies of that age should be taken from their mother's womb and adopted... premature babies do have a lot of problems, after all. It's just the lack of consistancy that bothers me. If the baby can be born at that age and grow up to be an intelligent, sentient individual, then one can hardly say that a foetus of that age isn't alive.

I'd be inclined to reduce the maximum age. If you don't want to be pregnant, then surely you can decide that within the first few weeks, rather than waiting four or five months? If you get pregnant and you're in any doubt about whether you really want the kid or not, then just waiting to see if you change your mind a few months later strikes me as rather irresponsible.

Thinking about it, I probably have less tolerance for people that get abortions than most of you guys. Over here, doctors and pharmacists aren't allowed to refuse you contraception or the morning-after-pill if you ask for it. Or if they tried to do it, you'd just go see a different one, while reporting them to the governmental regulatory bodies (apparently such departments do have a use after all). So the only excuse to have an abortion over here is rape or chronic idiocy. A certain viewpoint suggests that people with the latter shouldn't have abortions, because they should be neutered instead, but... *shrugs*

[Shard]

I dunno, I've seen plenty of them on tv.

And yeah - the contraception versus abortion issue is a complicated one. I for one wish that we'd have *better* than adequate education about safe healthy sex and the options that everyone has to enjoy themselves without becoming pregnant OR getting sick. But the problem has then become that the far-right has decided, "if they are taught, they'd do it! that's bad!" which is patently wrong.

Cases in point are found in poorer 3rd world countries in Africa and the middle east, where women are treated less than dirt, but the moment that they are able to, they educate themselves and try living to their potential. That means: learning about their own bodies, not treating their mensutral cycle as supersition and the like. But do that in America?! not a chance...

I'm absolutely all for any woman who won't have an abortion for some reason - but I'm also for adoption being far more widespread. Every one of the people holding protest signs about abortion *should be required to adopt*.

I wish that it'd be a requirement to pass exams to even have kids, but that's just me.

*

Shiolar: good points about fetal development/survival. However I think the word in use isn't necessarily 'alive' but 'human'. I personally don't belive that if a foetus wouldn't survive on its own without drugs, machinery or surgery, it's not meant to live in the first place. I'd rather see healthy children be given preference. Now to be fair, my ex was about 2 months preemie, himself. But two months is usually safer than 4, and I've seen way too many extreme-preemies that just hurt to look at. more tubes and wires than flesh and bone. sigh. I feel more sorry for the parents and family that have to put up thousands of dollars, a lifetime of difficulty. There are hundreds of healthy children in need of parents.

[Dray]

I can't see a woman getting multiple abortions due to 'chronic idiocy'. Isn't there enough psychological trauma from having to go through with it in the first place? Isn't there pain involved (or at least all kinds of inconveniences) with getting an abortion in the first place?

There's accidents and ignorance, too, not just "Y HALO THAR RAPESECKS!" and people who just don't care. :\ Some people aren't educated properly, like Kat had said. In which case it's kind of stupid to punish them for something they didn't figure out properly. Like she said, people are going to have sex whether anybody gets involved with the after-effects or not.

Tolerance is important; education is so much more so. Better to help people see things a certain way themselves then cram ideologies down their throats, ones that may do more harm then good.

Edit: Hee, Shard beat me to it. X3
In that case, have a bit of on-topic humor:
http://sexed4all.ytmnd.com/

[Shard]

I know a friend of a friend who is such a chronic Idiot, dray. She's had like 6 abortions. That's just plain stupid. :/ But apparently there is trauma for some, and not so much for others.

[Shiolar]

Over here, though, there's more than enough education about the value of contraception. You know, at ages 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 AND 16. It's a standard at all schools, because of government regulations (we have so many of those), and it's really quite thorough. So unless you're regularly skipping school, it's practically impossible to avoid being educated on the matter. It's prolly more a case that people just don't LISTEN to the education, not that they're not receiving it at all.

This country has enough of a system in place that people shouldn't be able to use the excuse that they just didn't know any better, or that they never had the chance to be educated about it, or that no one would give them contraceptives, or that no one would give them the morning-after-pill. We actually have government run offices that give away FREE contraceptives to people that want them; not only do they encourage the use of them, but they don't expect people to pay for them. And every town has such an office.

This is why I say chronic idiocy.

[Mystic Dragon]

Actually, there are a number of women who get 'convinent' abortions. Mind you, they're priviledged, uneducated in the ways of sex, and generally ignorant.

I get into this debate a lot because I am very much Pro-Choice. As many of you have already said, it's not right to bring an unwanted child into the world, ruining both its chance for a happy life and the mother's. There are some good homes that these kids can be adopted into, but the truth of the matter is that there's an equal amount of bad ones. People who believe that they're getting free cash if they take on a few brats, feed them now and then, and dress them in rags. The things these adopted children have to go through are sometimes far worse then anything you can imagine. Abuse, rape, assault, slavery.

I know there's a lot of good people out there. Honest people who would adopt for the sake of the /child/ not themselves. However, living with two social workers has also given me insight into the /other/ side of life.

And that's just if the child gets adopted. Living with an unwilling mother can be just as bad.

So while there /are/ people who take advantage of the system, I still say it's far more cruel to ban abortion. There are always going to /be/ people who take advantage of the system; whatever system it may be. But that doesn't mean we should punish the people who truly /need/ these services.

[Shard]

Of course, you know what I always like to say.


"If men could become pregnant, birth control would be free, and in beer."

I really do think that it should be a couple's right to choose to keep a severely premature child, a severely mutated or retarded one, at their cost. But an unwed mother, an underage mother, one who's still in school, or any of those other circumstances - most likely shouldn't become a mother. It needs to be a family thing, not that I had a full family growing up (and look how I turned out... heh) but it's safer with a secure financial background, a healthy LOVING relationship between the parents, a safe environment and good potential for education. Anything less than that and we're just ... breeding. Not raising families.

Sometimes I wonder how it'd turn out if, in a sci fi world, we could separate the mass of children from the mass of parents, and just *change* how they're brought up. All at once, all with a goal of all those great things we want in society of equality and such. Whether it's all genetic, only partially so, or all social, I have to wonder if we're too far along to just nudge our own instincts along, or if we really need an overhaul...

[JKatkina]

The biggest problem with deciding early in gestation whether or not the mother wants to keep the child is that often the mother isn't aware of being pregnant. :( I know it sounds dumb, but... well...

Contraceptives sometimes fail and you don't know till you're pregnant. The pill, while almost always effective, causes serious side-effects in some people, so they can't take it. IUDs aren't always reliable, condoms break (and sometimes male partners don't tell). Then let's not even get into 'rhythm' and pulling out, which shouldn't be counted at all. >.> And believe it or not, many women have really unstable periods, like, you don't know if it's coming in two weeks or two months. Heck, sometimes some bleeding even happens in early pregnancy that can be misinterpreted as getting your period. If you don't know to check if you're pregnant, and you don't get the most balatant of symptoms, you don't find out till you start to bulge.

[Shiolar]

Agreed that people who're underaged, unwed (or at least lacking in a long term partner) or still in school shouldn't become mothers... The thing is, if they know they shouldn't be having kids, why aren't they taking steps to avoid it? Ie, contraception, morning-after-pill, or just simply not having sex if the previous options aren't available. Abortion should be a last resort because of accidents, rape and so on. Not used in the casual way it is now.

I suppose you could summarise the whole issue as a lack of common sense, a lack of self-control, or both. Either you're not thinking about the consequences of not having safe-sex, or you don't have the self-control to not have sex when you know you can't reasonably look after a kid.

[Mystic Dragon]

The thing is, if they know they shouldn't be having kids, why aren't they taking steps to avoid it?

Because they're stupid.

As much as we praise our ingenuity and our intellect, there are some people in the world who really do possess less sense then the rest of us. Call them uneducated, sterotypical, or biased, but they /are/ the people who never use protection, then bitch and complain about the consequences.

And then there are those who don't /believe/ in contraception. Who plan to have fifty million kids and can't adaqutely care for a single one of them.

[Dray]

...why aren't they taking steps to avoid it? Ie, contraception, morning-after-pill, or just simply not having sex if the previous options aren't available.

Here here! Masturbation for all! :P

[JKatkina]

Or people in marriages/relationships where their partner won't let them use contraceptives because they don't believe in them. :E I've heard stories of that and it makes me mad.

But yes, human stupidity is kind of a given, unfortuantely. v.v On both sides of the equation.

[Astra]

I'm sorry, but no.

I am against abortion in principle and I always have been. Yes, it is necessary for some things like incest and so on, or if the child has little/no chance of surviving anyway and it would save the mother's life. I disagree with them banning it altogether like they are, but it should not also be used as a form of birth control and I don't think it's right to take a life because it is inconvenient for the child to come into the world.

And if people like Mystic mentioned can do that, adopt kids and dress them in rags to make money, then I'm sorry, but that's messed up. My aunt and uncle are the two nicest people in the world (and rich, too), but they've been unable to have children and when they tried to adopt they were turned down. If some freak child abuser can get a kid and they can't, then I think the solution is to revamp the adoption system, not to allow more "frivolous" abortion.

God knows I'm no right wing Christian, though my dad is, I just dislike the idea because ... I don't know, here everyone's going on about making your own choices and what about the choice of the poor unborn child who can't speak for itself? What makes a baby who's just about to be born that vastly different than a baby who's just been born? If someone suggested that we all start killing newborns, everyone would flip out about it. I guess I just don't see that much of a difference. Maybe, if it's early enough in the pregnancy, but after the first couple months or so... :-\

I agree, though, mostly, with Shiolar -- It shouldn't be banned altogether because that is unrealistic, but it should be a last resort, not something as casual as using a condom to prevent unwanted children. I also think that sex should be a meaningful act between two people who love each other, not two drunken teenagers who don't give two sh*ts except that they're both hot. I dunno ... I realize that meaningless sex is going to happen, but that doesn't mean I should be forced to approve of it.

Also as an aside, one of my pet peeves is when people say that because someone is against abortion they are automatically against all womens rights. So because I want to run for president or vote in Afghanistan or whatever, suddenly I have to be pro-choice and consider sex to be meaningless? Or, because I want to get married and have a traditional family, I therefore must hate women and want to remain barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen? I don't get it

Okay one more aside and then I'm done ranting I promise (and I have an exam in an hour ... eek). I would like to stress again that I am not against all abortions, ever, I just think that there had better be a damned good (life or death) reason. But what people often leave out in the debate is how much it f*cks you up emotionally. Someone very close to me, probably the closest thing I have to a sister, recently went through an abortion, and she's really never been the same since then. She really wanted to keep the baby but she was more or less forced into it by her parents. It's a really traumatizing experience, and it can really screw you up, and a lot of people don't seem to realize that.

[Shiolar]

Heh, thanks Astra... you voiced what I was thinking in a way that made a lot more sense.

Ultimately, aborting a foetus is a lot like murdering a newborn baby, especially when that foetus is developed enough that it could survive if it was actually born. So naturally abortion should be avoided where possible. If there's rape or incest involved, then abortion should be allowed, and in the other special circumstances - the mother's at risk, the baby probably wouldn't survive anyway, and so on...

And yeah, meaningless sex is obviously going to happen, but the aforementioned drunk teenagers shouldn't be able to get out of the responsibility of a child because they weren't sensible enough to use contraception. I suppose that's the overall point I was trying to make, is that abortion currently is treated as another form of birth control, which it shouldn't be, because the methods we already have a good enough when people can be bothered to use them. Methods that don't result in killing a baby.

[Dray]

>_O Ugh.

But what about when those two drunk teenagers (if the guy doesn't take off) /do/ end up with the responsibility of raising a child, like some kind of punishment? You can be damned sure that most of them are going to resent being saddled with a kid and are going to give it a pretty crappy childhood. So now you have two or three people whose lives are unhappy, and probably in pretty poor condition for one reason or another.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the thought of having abortion be a casual thing. I just don't think that people should be made to raise a child like it will 'serve them right'. It seems wrong, to me.

[Astra]

as i said, that's why they need to revamp the adoption system. There are plenty of good people who ARE willing to raise a child, and can't; possibly many more so than who just want to do it to make a buck. I guess it's a hard question, though, I mean, what would you do, if you were that fetus? Yes I know feti are as a rule rather stupid, but looking back, would you rather have a crappy childhood, or never live at all? It's kind of a hard question I guess.

I think maybe the answer is not to make abortions illegal but to educate people more on what other options are out there and the possible consequences, physical and psychological, of having one. That way people can make their own decision but at least it will be an educated one.

[Shiolar]

It would teach those drunk teenagers some responsibility, something they'd obviously need to learn if they were daft enough to get into that situation in the first place... Casual abortion just means they can not bother being careful at all, whereas if it's made totally clear to them that if the girl gets pregnant they've got to deal with the consequences (boy's gotta pay maintenance, at the very least), then they might think twice before casually leaping into bed with each other because they happened to catch each other's eyes across a crowded bar or whatever...

[JKatkina]

First off, bravo for speaking up on your beliefs. :D I think given that most who have spoken up already are on the pro-choice side of the spectrum, that's a good thing of you to do.

So this isn't an attack on you and I'm sorry if I word it strongly. ^^; I'll try to be good.

First off, I believe for the majority of women who get abortions, it isn't 'as casual a thing as using a condom'. Granted, there are those who do use it that way, but as said above, any system will have people who abuse it. :| And stupid people who just don't get that a condom would be easier, safer, cheaper, and MORALLY far more... well, comfortable. Condonable. Abortion is comparatively expensive, unpleasant, and so very, very stigmatized that for the majority of people, it is FAR from a first choice.

Also, a great deal of the people who 'use it as birth control' do because all of their other options have been taken away, or stigmatized to the point where they would rather chance a pregnancy than be seen buying condoms or taking birth control pills or the morning after pill (which, by the way, causes horrible unpleasant physical side effects, so it's not something 'you just take' -- it too is a last resort). That is the major flaw in the system; we educate our young that sex is inherently bad rather than telling them that it's way bloody better to use condoms than it is to deal with unwanted children, or get an abortion.

I will agree that late-term abortions squick me out, and seem uncomfortable to my sense of morality. It's my personal belief that a woman should be able to have an abortion till the point where the foetus is viable -- that is, can survive outside of her body. Many people will disagree with this, but I believe the foetus is part of the mother's body, or at least so dependent it might as well be, until the point where it can survive outside of her. The problem is I don't know enough about when that is to debate the point accurately. :\

I realize abortion fucks you up. It's a damn hard process, and that's why exactly it should be the decision of the mother, and the mother alone. I really, really wish it wasn't a necessity in this day and age -- and believe things WILL eventually get to the point where we've educated ourselves and the younger generations enough that it really will only be a life-or-death kind of decision. We're just not there yet.

No one's forcing you to approve of anything, though. oo Just... tolerate it, or make positive changes to prevent it, if you feel you must and/or can.

[JKatkina]

Oh, dear....

Shiolar, it would NOT teach them responsibility, ESPECIALLY if they're 'daft enough to get pregnant in the first place'. It would just make them resent the child, and each other, and the system that makes having a child neccesary. Teenagers are not particularly responsible, and teenage parents are no exception... well, okay, I'm sure there are SOME responsible teenage parents, every one that I've seen had been messed up, and passed that on to their kid. :/

Not to mention, using a child as punishment for the parent is... ugh. I personally find it deplorable, moreso than early-term abortions.

**edit** Again, not an attack on you. :\ This is just one of my stronger beliefs on the subject. Children should not be considered punishment.

[Astra]

I guess its hard to say what we'd do if we were never in the situation, too. I've, thankfully, never been pregnant. I had a scare, once, when my boyfriend and I were first sleeping together, and we discussed abortion as an option but ultimately I didn't think I could do it and we decided that we'd either try to find someone to adopt the baby, or we'd get married and attempt to raise it ourselves (I'm in school, but he's finished soon, so working it out would be difficult, but not impossible). Luckily Ian and I love each other a lot otherwise it would be damned hard to raise a kid together.

I have known people on all ends of the spectrum though. I have a very large family. My dad's parents ... definitely didn't believe in contraception, to put it lightly. My grandma's ninth pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and she attempted to get a ... whatever that surgery is that makes you unable to get pregnant anymore ... hysterechtomy? And died from an allergic reaction to the anasthetics. Grandma Kathy was definitely an example of the "The pill is not evil, use it!" argument. I, ironically, am an only child, but I have a relative who has had an abortion, relatives who have adopted unwanted children, and relatives who have tried to adopt but were rejected. So I sort of know how it works but I still can't say that I know how I would react if it were me, you know?

[Shiolar]

I've known a few teenagers who got themselves pregnant, and then really matured and grew up because of the responsibility of looking after a child. Not many, admittedly, but enough. The process of their own childhood being truncated lead them to be much more responsible parents when it came to making sure their own kid wasn't as stupid as they were... *shrugs*

My mum always used contraception, but when accidents occurred, she just dealt with it, resulting in me and my younger sister, and then fifteen years later, what would have been my baby brother if mum hadn't miscarried. Hence my own belief that if you get pregnant, you deal with it rather than running off to have an abortion. If you can't cope with the possibility of getting pregnant, then you shouldn't be having sex.

And yeah, while you shouldn't punish irresponsible people with forcing a kid on them, is it right to punish the kid by killing it because it's parents were irresponsible and careless?