Not much too add to your post, Jeanie. I agree.

Bex, your position seems to be this: abortion, under any circumstances, is murder, and human life begins at conception. You then proceeded to re-state this to me even though I said I would rather discuss with someone whose views are not at this extreme end of the spectrum. There's nowhere to go in a discussion with you. And you're not going to persuade me to share your views. You ask me why I have so much concern for the mother and so little for the baby. I ask you why you are so fervent in fighting for the life of a bundle of cells when the mother -- a fully-grown human with a life of her own -- seems to be of so little concern to you. If you would seriously consider backing laws which would force women to carry babies to term when they've been raped or abused, then I have no words left for you.

I think abortion should not be an easy option for anybody. But it needs to be one nonetheless. Sometimes I think it's kinder to the mother and/or the baby to stop the pregnancy before it gets very far. If a heroin-addicted prostitute accidentally got pregnant and wanted an abortion, I wouldn't personally see an ethical problem with that, given that the pregnancy has not yet progressed very far. You see, I don't necessarily believe that a soul enters the cells at the moment of conception, and if you do believe this, there's no way to prove it. There's the potential for a human to develop from those cells but I would not put them on the same ethical level as a fully-grown fetus, baby, or human being. RAZD did make some good points in earlier debates; for example, natural abortions (miscarriages) happen quite frequently, often before a woman even knows she's pregnant. I had one myself. I was upset for a little while. Do I feel I lost a human being? No.

I think we have to be very careful about which rights we are willing to curtail or strip from women. I want to live in a society where I have some control over my own body and what I decide to do with it. Like I said, I think abortion needs to be legal, but it should not be an easy contraceptive option and women need to be given time and help to think about their choice before they make it.

One last point -- let's imagine the child born of a woman who was raped and not allowed to have an abortion. Let's hope he/she does not inherit the criminal tendencies of the father -- the woman has not been able, after all, to select her own partner for the conception. At which age do you inform the child that its father was a rapist? We're hoping, as well, that the child manages OK without a father around -- or that the woman's husband or boyfriend accepts it as part of the family. The more likely scenario would be that it was given up for adoption, in which case we'd have to hope that the mother took care of herself during the pregnancy even though she is carrying a child she does not want, and a constant reminder for 9 months of having been violated in the most personal way possible.

Ethics are never black and white and they are never easy.

By the way, Bex, the sorts of pictures you post are an attempt to evoke an emotional response. They are shock tactics, nothing more. If abortion were carried out, my own position is that it should be early in the pregnancy and it should be quick and painless for both mother and baby. That is not beyond the scope of modern technology and if it isn't always the case, it needs to be. The pictures don't affect the other issues under discussion here.