Undecided

I am pro-choice though as many of you know, I'm not an extremist or a "devout" follower.

I don't feel I'm on "a fence" because I believe that the pro-choice thought is a lot wider than people think, and that many more people are actually pro-choice, despite calling themselves pro-life.

There is the issue of the name "pro-life" and what they "say" the movement means. When you get down to the nitty gritty, pro-life is about the unborn child. If it wasn't for the unborn child, the pro-life movement wouldn't exist.

But pro-choice would, because pro-choice deals with more than just abortion.

There's the concept of self-right. You have a right to control your on body, but that right ends where someone else's body begins. So, I can't kill you because that breaks your bodily rights.

I guess that is what is getting me so confuzzled at this point. I have the stereotypes of each side stuck in my head and keep trying to apply one or the other to myself without leaving room for different ideals.

Hey Opal, I'm the same as you. I don't really fit in on either side. I know I could never have an elective abortion myself but that opinion is coming from a happily married woman. Would I have had one if I'd fallen pregnant as a single student? I really don't know.

My problem is that I believe human life is essentially no more significant than any other living creature. However, I would choose to save the life of a human over that of a snail. So I'm a hypocrite.

The thought of abortion makes me dreadfully sad and I wish it didn't have to happen but I realise that it has always happened and probably always will. The best I can do is make my personal decisions based on my own feelings. However, that makes me feel guilty because then I think I'm being selfish by only thinking of myself.

I think being pro-life is very hard unless you have a God telling you what to think. If you have your own mind then it's hard to reason the 'wrongs' of abortion out.

So yeah, I'm with you in the middle hun, but it's not so bad! I find it's a good place to be because you don't feel obliged to stand up for what you 'should' think. That's why I enjoy this forum - I'm not fighting one corner, I'm seeing the flaws and truths of both sides.

That is another one of my issues. I always seem to find myself arguing with the pro-lifers more than anyone else. I hat to see people trying to force their opinions on someone else. I can see others' point of view and try my hardest to respect that, but I also fight against those who do not and in doing so will pick a more extreme position just to make a point.

The reason I am pro life with out bringing in the Bible.. Is because it just makes me ill to think of a human being killed.. It just breaks my heart to think of such an act.. Personally if I where to become pregnant and it was a choice to save the baby or myself. I would choose the baby.
I had an abortion when I was very very young.. I have excepted what I did, but it still make me sad for it. The baby Fetus, whatever you want to call it has no choice weather it will grown into a person just like you and I. I'm glad my mother didn't abort me..

Choice is about what is right for each individual woman in her own right. Its not about a hypothetical 'baby' and embryo or fetus.
My Choices have spanned the range of possibility.

Twice I chose to gestate and carried my daughters to term.
Once I chose abortion.
Twice I had spontaineous miscarriages, once I had a still birth..of the pregnancies three times did my choice happen;

I have two lovely daughters; by my choice to gestate.

I aborted once; by my choice not to gestate.

It was about what was right for me each time.
I do not allow semantics to interfere with my life; I do not feel compelled to tell other women It was ok for me but I want to deny it to you; that is sheer hypocrisy; nor is it my job to tell other women what to do with their own bodies.
Pregnacy is a personal choice.

I agree, pregnancy is a choice.


Every woman should have the choice to decide for herself what she personally believes about life and apply that to herself. That's what pro-choice means to me.

You don't have to label yourself if it's uncomfortable for you. I call myself a vegetarian, but I occasionally eat fish. People used to call me a liar and a hypocrite. Now they have a new word for it "Moderate Vegetarian". So I guesss that's what I am. I consider myself to be very prochoice.

Here's how I came to that conclusion:

Back when I was in high school, I thought I was pregnant once. It was by a boy I really liked, but when i told him, he became distant and very cold to me. I knew at that moment that if i were pregnant at that time, I would have to have an abortion. I wanted to finish school, go to college and have a partner to raise a child with. I had no eathly interest in babies or children at that time. Raising a child would have been impossible, and even carrying one at 17 would have been beyond the scope of my vision. (I ended up getting my period, but the experience taught me a lesson, for sure!)

FAST FORWARD

I am 20 years old, and married. I am in college. i have a full class load and a full work schedule. I volunteer. I go out at night and enjoy the bar scene and the company of friends. i mountain bike, rock climb and kayak. And I have no money, as I am being put through college by my parents. I am on the pill, but then one day my period is late. I am again thinking about the "what-ifs". I discuss it with my husband and we agree this would be the worst time to start a family. Again, luck bears out and aunt flo comes to visit. I get put on Norplant so i don't have to worry about forgetting my pills anymore or about antibiotics making them ineffective.

FAST FORWARD

I am 27 years old and married, still. I am off the dreaded norplant after horrible complications and I am back on the pill again. I have finished college, bought a house, and both my husband and I have jobs. Not a lot of savings, but a lot of love. I tell him I am nit sure if it's the right time, to which he expounds "we have evverything you said we needed in order to have children. Jobs, education, house, stability. It's now or never, I don't want to be too old to play with my kids" OK I quit smoking, got off birth control, abstained for a month and then we got pregnant the first time we TTC. We had a littel girl and she was just as perfect as she ould possibly be. We decide we don't want any more kids (probably), but we aren't ready to do anything about it yet...

FAST FORWARD

I am 32 years old and start to hear the clock ticking, so we decide to go for another baby. We got our wish a lot sooner than we thought. I had a lot of depression throughout my pregnancy and some health problems too. Baby arrives, and although she has dislocated hips, she is beautiful and perfect. I had my tubes tied after my c-section because we were certain we did not want more children. (The docs try to tlak us out of this, of course, but we were sure). After she came i had horrible post partum psychosis and anxiety. I did not need to be admitted, although i kept asking to be. This faded away, but I still have issues.

Today, if I were by some slim chance to become pregnant i would abort without question. We could not financially support another child, and I could never go through pregnancy again.

Although I love my two girls beyond measure, I am still prochoice because i know how hard it would be for a stranger to understand my choice. I could never fully understand another's situation, so it's not up to me to judge the actions of another woman. I can't make that decision for another person, and I can't interfere with her ability to do so. That's why i label myself pro-child, pro-choice. I would support any woman for whatever her choice was, provided that she had put a lot of thought into it and knew what all her options were and had really done thoughtful introspection. I don't think any woman has to justify it to anyone else, so long as they can justify it to themselves.

I

ahh im glad im not alone on this

when i first came to this forum i was pro life. i gues i felt that killing was wrong. then again i wasnt fully educated on abortion as a subject.
after reading posts on here and reaserching abortion i changed my mind completley

i think its up to the woman. she has the right to do whatever she chooses with her body, her baby/fetus.
it would be wrong to say " no you cant have that baby"
or " oh well you got pregnant so you have to have the baby no matter what even if your not able to support it or give it a good life"

thats takeing away ones individual rights
and i guess i do still get stuck in the middle sometimes because i still have some mixed feelings about it.
ugh
its complicated

i just feel that in the end we should leave it up to the woman and what her best interest is.

Thanks for sharing your story Sillyac, here's to hoping those tubes stay tied for you

I don't think you need to label yourself.

I personally do because I feel very strongly about a womans right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

I have had one miscarriage, an abortion and am now pregnant (and continuing the pregnancy).
I chose due to the fact I was young, at university, my birth control had failed, I hadn't been in my relationship (now my fiance) for a huge amount of time and also found myself very ill in the initial stages of it (amongst other reasons which I wont go in to). I looked at every option but aborton was right for me and I never regret that decision as it enabled me to be in a position I would like to be in to bring a child into the world.

I know, at that stage in my life, I would have tried to abort regardless of it's legal status and I would hate for another woman to be that determined to not have a child and have no safe access to that treatment.

I think that women are more informed than some would give them credit for - before my abortion I had seen my ultrasound, I knew exactly what was happening during that development period, I knew exactly what the procedure entailed and any possible side effects/risks.

WOmen have the intelligence, and therefore should have the right, to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy they face, for whatever reason

I agree! being pro-choice is about being for a choice of continuing on with the pregnancy, aborting it or adopting it out and adopting is one that I will always question because their are so many children out there that will never be adopted and there are alot of them that are put into these places where they are not given the love or time that they deserve. You always have to think seriously about what you want to do. I would rather see a fetus aborted then to be neglected, abused or even drown. You have to realize that once you decide to have them that thry are yours for the rest of your or there lives.
I have had two m/c, two much needed abortions and have raised two wonderful now young adults(they do not like to be called kids and it is there choice). Plus they are over 20y/o.
I have no right to judge anyone, it is there choice and I am not living in there shoes.
Abortion is not muurrder because in order for it to be muurrder, it must be a born child.

I am pro-choice because I think only the people who will have to live with the consequences of their choices should make their choices. We can go on and on about how girls should have their babies, but what about after they have their babies? These people who want them to have the baby-are they helping feed that baby? Will they have to change its diapers? Listen to it scream and cry? Raise it for the next eighteen years? No. They'll move on to the next pregnant woman. Raising a child is a big deal, people shouldn't have babies just because they got pregnant. If they don't want a baby, I don't want them caring for one. That is what bothers me about pro-lifism. It's all about humanity until the human is born.

Anyway, I was always pro-choice. I don't know why I became that way, I just know I knew I was and the more and more I learned, the more pro-choice I became.

The one thing that bothers me about Por-Choicers is they don't they don't seem to see the conncection with it being human at all.

I don't think you'll find a single pro-choicer here that believes it's not human. After all, what is it if it isn't human... a dog? A fish? Of course it's human.

I was pro-life before I became pregnant. I thought that if a woman became pregnant, she should at the very least carry the pregnancy to term. That changed when I became pregnant and found out for myself that pregnancy is hard and it puts your body through hell. I was miserable during my pregnancy, and my child was a wanted child. I would never wish that on someone who didn't want it.

Looking back, I feel sad that I ever thought I knew better than other women that I didn't personally know. I know now that it's not my place or my right to tell another woman what she should do or how she should choose. I don't think of abortion as "not a big deal", or of a z/e/f as worthless... which is why I don't believe I will ever personally have an abortion. But that's where I draw the line... at my own feet, not at the feet of any other woman. I believe a woman should have the right to choose what she feels is the best choice for herself and her situation. Does that mean I'm wild about abortion? No. I'm simply pro-choice. Pro-choice is not always pro-abortion.

I am choosing to go with the point where it can feel pain, which is most widely excepted as 20 weeks This my cutoff point, and if at all possible an abortion should be performed before then. I do not feel that there is enough developement before this point for a fetus to be termed human being since it can not respond to stimuli and can not survive out of the womb even with extensive medical treatment.