U.S. maternal mortality rate 13 deaths per 100,000 live births — National Center for Health Statistics

U.S. maternal mortality during an abortion is only 1per 1,000,000 if done before 9 weeks. - National Center for Health Statistics

That means Childbirth is 10x more likely to result in death than an abortion.

Also men do not FORCE a woman to have an abortion. She does not have to. He should be able to share what he wants to do about the unplanned pregnancy with his partner. But the power is solely in the woman’s hand. I have known lots of men who have wanted to be a father, but she elected to get an abortion. So your claims are silly.

ALSO: THERE IS NO, I REPEAT NO, LINK BETWEEN ABORTIONS AND BREAST CANCER.

NOTE: The HPV Vaccine: * about 11,270 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed and about 4,070 women will die from cervical cancer. And 70-75% or Cervical Cancer is caused by HPV.

I dont know how good your math skills are but correct me if I am wrong 4,070 > 30

Also, when was the last time you went to Africa? You are gravely mistaken in saying that the only reason AIDS is spread is because of guerrilla fighters. I was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. And let me tell you this is not the case. Its ignorance of how HIV is spread and lies from missionaries. Many Many Many children are born with HIV. Also, Your facts on condoms are simply false. They are over 99% effective in preventing the Spread of HIV. The Information you are saying is KILLING people.

Please get educated and stop spreading Fundamentalist Propaganda.

I live in Texas. And the HPV vaccine is a campaign issue. We have 2 conservative republicans (gag) running for governor. And one of the attack adds against Rick Perry by Kay Baily Hutchison is about how “Rick Perry forced your girl to get a shot against a SEXUALLY!!!! transmitted disease. Why is the state telling our girls about sex? ”

No lie. No mention of cervical cancer…nothing. Texas is the second most populated state, has the most uninsured children, the most single parent homes in the US, and has the most children living in poverty. But they do not give comprehensive sex ed (only an optional Abstinence only course– I teach High School and that’s the policy here). Its like they have this utopian society idea, where no one has sex outside of marriage. Then once married they roboticly and with out any sort of enjoyment, have sex solely to have children and only with their husbands.

And this sort thing only ever focuses on the pregnant women. They did not wake up pregnant. There had to be a sperm as well as an egg. Yet, they only want the women to “face the consequences”. This sort of thing really makes me angry. But all I can do is rally against it, vote against it, and raise my future daughters to be smart, strong, and sexually educated.

Men force women into abortion in order for THEM to escape the consequences of sex. It’s not the woman’s fault. It’s the man’s fault.

There are more women that die from abortions than die in childbirth! There are many consequeces of abortion, including, but not limited to: Post abortion syndrome, post traumatic stress disorder, sleep disorders, anxiety/nervous disorders, grief, eating disorders, substance abuse, divorce, chronic relationship problems, self punishment, child abuse, suicide, breast cancer, cervical caner, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, uterine perforations, cervical lacerations, endometriosis, infection, excessive bleeding, embolism, ripping of the uterus, anesthesia complications, convulsions, hemorrhage, cervical injury, toxic shock, fever, chronic abdominal pains, second degree burns, Rh sensitization, vomiting, gastro-intestinal disturbances, and death.

So, either way, there is a consequence for sex. In all reality, having a child is a lesser consequence than abortion. It decreases the likelihood of breast cancer, it increases bone density, it makes the body healthier. Abortion breaks down the body. Plus, to quote Patricia Heaton, “A woman who experiences an unplanned pregnancy has the right to experience an unplanned joy!” Childbirth and children are not punishments, they are blessings!

There are many arguments against the many types of contraception in the world. Condoms: There are naturally occurring holes in rubber, including that of the latex in condoms. Those holes are 50-500 times larger than the size of the HIV/AIDS virus. Condoms give a false sense of security.
Birth control pills: There have been many studies that show that birth control pills are just one cause of breast cancer by manipulating the estrogen and progesterone in the body.
A person’s best bet for not contracting an STD is to not have sex in the first place.

Abortion makes the psychological trauma from rape and incest worse. Many women have gotten pregnant from rape and incest. Those who aborted their children say that it was the worst decision they ever made. Those who have given birth have said that at least something good came from something so bad.

Partial birth abortion can only be done in cases where the baby is large enough for the doctor to disect, and is therefore viable. If the baby is viable and is partially delivered, it should be fully delivered, put into a hospital, and allowed to live.

I agree that we should be advocating welfare for those who have less.

The vaccine for HPV has caused more illness and death than it’s helped. It’s caused over 30 deaths and a few hundred cases of complications from the vaccine in the past couple of years. Does that sound safe to you?

People who bomb abortion clinics are NOT pro-life. Furthermore, there has been more violence purpetrated by pro-aborts than by pro-lifers. It’s just that the mainstream media is so pro-abortion that they shut down stories about pro-aborts causing violence, and build up stories about anti-abortion violence.

The UN Population Fund doesn’t decrease the likelihood of disease, it increases it. See my arguments against contraception above. Furthermore, those in Africa that the UN Population Fund is giving condoms to don’t believe in using birth control because of their religious beliefs. Also, the ones that are causing the spread of AIDS in Africa are the guerrilla fighters who rape to bring shame upon those people and their families, and to show that they’re in power. They look at it as a tool of war. Putting in Planned Parenthood offices and giving out condoms and other forms of contraception will not work. Maternal death and fistula are caused by not having the hospitals and doctors that those of us in the first world have. If you want to end health issues, fund medicine, the building of hospitals, and the education of doctors, not abortion. By funding abortion, you just add to the poor health of those third-world countries.

I don’t understand the first policy argument. Would someone explain?

Pro-lifers are not against sex ed. Some, including myself, are against contraception because it does NOT save tens of thousands of children from being murdered. Instead, it prevents the proper forming of life in the womb.

Your argument against the banning of D&X abortion does is not valid because we are also against any other form of abortion, therefore we believe that doctors should not perform the abortion in anyway.

IF there is such policy as advocataing less generous welfare for poor single mothers (rather than just people in general), there are plenty of people willing to help like pregnancy help centers (not planned parenthood).

Pro-lifers are not opposed to having a vaccine against HPV.

The key thing about pro-lifers is that they are PRO- LIFE in all forms. The bombing of abortion clinics (if there were people inside) would therefore be injuring, if not killing, the doctors, patients, and anyone else in the buildings.

Pro-lifers would oppose the use use of birth control. Therefore it is valid that pro-lifers would oppose the funding of the Population Fund.

Furthermore, total abstinence for life (except for when you want to become pregnant) is an extremely unnatural state and may well be bad for your health. Why should a person suffer ill consequences to their emotional and physical health simply because s/he is not interested in having a child at the moment? Consistent use of birth control (as in use birth control EVERY TIME, no “being careless” as you and your ex were) reduces the risk of pregnancy greatly. If an occasional pregnancy occurs nonetheless, well, auto accidents happen too, even to people who are not drunk or talking on their cell phones. Does that mean that they shouldn’t receive medical care for their injuries because auto accidents are 100% avoidable by not driving?

And, yes, an unwanted pregnancy is an injury acquired during sex. A potentially deadly injury. Women have died from pregnancy. An epidemic of H1N1 (”swine”) flu is expected this year. Current predictions are that treatment of severe flu will require 150% of available ICU bed capacity. One group of people most likely to be severely sickened and killed by the swine flu is pregnant women (several pregnant women have already died of it.) So this year is a particularly dangerous time to be pregnant. Do you wish to force someone else to take this risk-a risk you will never have to bear?

David, I think you’re really dodging around in your arguments here. On the one hand, you speak of “birth control,” yet on the other, you acknowledge that what most people call “birth control” (condoms and other contraceptives) can fail and that what you actually mean is that no woman ever ought to have heterosexual intercourse without being willing to bear a child. Total abstinence =/= birth control.

Also, I’m really troubled by your assumption that anyone who has sex in a loving, committed relationship therefore must want to have children. It is an extremely essentializing view to take of women that all of them must want to be mothers. Some women do, some women don’t. Those who don’t should still be able to have loving, committed relationships that include sex. If you criminalize abortion (which appears to be what you are advocating), then you are saying no woman should be able to have sex without becoming a mother, and any woman who doesn’t want to be a mother never should have sex.

Finally, your daughter was never an “unwanted” child; she was born of an unplanned pregnancy. That’s not the same thing. You and your ex evidently wanted her, or you would have had her adopted at birth. Thus your sentiments about your daughter are wholly inapplicable to what is meant by “unwanted children.”

I don’t know you and as I said before I am not interested in judging you or any of the millions like you.

[reads David's previous several sentences]

I do not think that sentence means what you think it means.

I won’t bother correcting any of the many erroneous assumptions in your paragraph, because you’re not here to talk to anyone, just to talk at people. If you can say “pregnancy is avoidable” and yet say you know about failure rates, you are showing a level of dishonesty, either with yourself or with your audience, that makes you utterly uninteresting to converse with.

Pregnancy is completely avoidable. I believe anyone who can’t be bothered to use birth control or self control to avoid pregnancy should be responsible for themselves.

Oh dear.

David, are you aware that contraceptives have failure rates?

I’m asking because my unplanned pregnancy, which ended in abortion, came about after correct use of birth control.

You see, I am not a religious nut like some that I think you were referencing. While I still hold a hope that there is a presence bigger than us and am partial to the idea that when I die maybe I will get to see some of the loved ones in my life that have already passed away. That is as far as me and religion go.

That being said, pregnancy is completely avoidable. I believe anyone who can’t be bothered to use birth control or self control to avoid pregnancy should be responsible for themselves. I’m only 27 years old. 7 Years ago myself and my 18 year old girlfriend were careless and now I have a 7 year old daughter. No one in our lives pushed us to have the baby, in fact parents on both sides were willing to help us terminate the pregnancy. We both felt that it was not appropriate to go the abortion route. Not a day goes by that I don’t look at my daughter and feel ashamed that the thought of aborting her even crossed my mind.

Since her birth her mom and I have split up and now share custody. I believe we are both better people today because of what Kali has brought to our lives.

I don’t think I am morally better than anybody. I have faults on top of faults and don’t believe I am worthy of passing judgment on anybody. I just don’t buy the argument that our society is better off without “unwanted” children. Also I truly believe it to be out right irresponsible for women (and the cowardly men that put it all on the woman) to use abortion as birth control. The statistics show that abortions preformed due to rape, incest, and other horrible things that are certainly not any woman’s fault, only make up between 1% and 5% of abortions preformed in the U.S. In 2007 planned parenthood preformed 305,310 abortions. This number is shocking to me and it only represents part of the total which I believe sits around 1.5 million. Since 1973 our society has aborted 49,551,703 American children. How can someone see numbers like this and not be affected.

Sorry if I rambled I just wish society (not just women) could take a little more responsibility for our actions. I don’t hate women that have had them done but if I knew a woman that was continuously going to the clinic to hit the delete button on life, I would find it hard to have any respect for that person.

I wrote to point out that not everyone who feels the fetus is a person also feels abortion should be illegal or is ethically wrong, because there were a few comments equating seeing a fetus as a person as being opposed to abortion.

Basically, I described bodily domain and how it relates to abortion. Specifically that bodily domain is the ethical construct defining the ownership of an individual over his/her/whatever body.

Being that I am the sole determiner of what happens to my body in bodily domain, it depends on my explicit nonpermanent consent. Implied consent is not real. Consenting to something does not bind me into a contract to remain consenting either. So, say, if a man wanted to have sex with me he could not assume I consented by my clothing or manner and be exempt from being a violator of my bodily domain. And if I consented to sex initially but then needed to stop (for whatever reason that may be) he would be violating my bodily domain if he did not stop.

Bodily domain ethically justifies the use of force to protect your BD. This force must be necessary to end the violation, excessive force isn’t really justified. This force may violate the perpetrator’s BD if that violation is unavoidable in protecting yourself from a current violation. So if the only way to stop this guy from raping me is to kill him or stab him or spray him in the eyes with something caustic, then I am justified in doing so. But if I were to be raped and then I came across him later, I would not be justified through bodily domain in killing him then.

This still applies if the violator isn’t in control of themselves or isn’t purposefully violating you. Someone with a ridiculous level of psychosis and isn’t in control of his actions can still be responded to with force in self defense. So a lack of intent in violating my BD is not an excuse or an “avoid self defense” card.

We can all agree on these principles. They are a necessity in our society and provide a guiding framework for how we protect ourselves and avoid harming others.

Well, they apply to unwanted pregnancy too. The fetus in an unwanted pregnancy is violating bodily domain. It doesn’t have intent sure, but it is there without consent nevertheless. Therefore a pregnant individual may defend themselves from the violation and remove the fetus from their body. This does mean the fetus dies, but bodily domain justifies this just as it justifies killing a rapist in self defense if that’s the only way to stop him (or her, must not be sexist against men, women can rape too).

Bodily domain works whether the fetus is a person or not. People are not allowed to violate me. I can defend myself with force against people who violate me. Therefore, I may defend against an unwanted fetus too.

er…pro-lifers?…want to rebut this?

I just arrived on this debate. Has Eric read the chart?