Then they are placed with a family who, years later, say things like, “if you aren’t blood, get out of the picture.” Of course, they mean in-laws and berate you when you slink away.

You’re thinking of farm animals. If you take a calf away from its mother, the cow will bellow for a few days, and then the calf and cow will forget all about one another. It doesn’t work that way for humans, setting aside the whole issue of what happens during the nine months of pregnancy.

I’m not laughing at you, sarah, but what Ampersand said is true. Please seek counseling to help you through this–from a person who will be sympathetic, not someone interested in using your pain as a club against you.

I am against surgical abortion ie the cutting up, or sucking apart of a foetus or baby who can feel pain. [...] What if after you had had an abortion and afterwards you looked into the science of foetal pain and you were horrified.

Sarah, I think its awful that you’ve experienced such regret.

But I think it’s even more awful because (as you say) you’re not a pro life propagandist; instead, you’re someone who has been taken in by pro life propaganda. The overwhelming majority of abortions happen long before there’s any chance that a fetus can feel pain.

In August 1995 2005, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review of the scientific literature on fetal pain (and a couple of related subjects). What legitimate research has found is that fetuses are not physically capable of feeling pain until sometime after the 28th week. (Which isn’t surprising — humans can’t feel pain, or anything else, without a working cerebral cortex).

This article — which is, admittedly, on a pro-choice site, but it thoroughly footnotes the sources of all its factual claims — does a good job outlining the reasons why the vast majority of abortions are completely pain-free for the fetus. From the article:

What of the claim by anti-choicers that even very early fetuses can feel pain? In fetal development, most major organs exist in rudimentary form by about 8 to 9 weeks. It takes several months for these organs to grow in size, complexity, and organization to the point they can function. For example, the myelin sheath—the insulating cover on nerve pathways that is required for efficient conduction of pain signals—does not begin forming around nervous system cells (neurons) in the spinal cord until about 24 weeks, and not till after birth in most of the cerebral cortex. Although sporadic brain waves can be detected by about 21 weeks gestation, genuine continuous brain waves do not begin until about 28 weeks,[9] indicating that the nerve circuits needed to carry pain impulses to the brain are not connected till then.

Anti-choicers believe early fetuses feel pain because 8 week-old fetuses already have some peripheral nerve endings that are connected to the spinal cord, allowing them to react to touch and other stimuli. However, this is a simple reflex response that has no conscious awareness associated with it, such as when your lower leg jerks up when your knee is tapped. There is no experience of pain because the nerve circuit is not interacting with the brain. An analogy might be putting a light bulb in a socket and flipping the switch when there are no electrical wires connecting the two, and therefore no current either. Put another way, there is no necessary connection between fetal movement and mental awareness, as we know from the famous example of headless running chickens.

Here’s a brief description of how pain impulses are transmitted through the body and brain. Nerve endings in the skin are the most common point of entry for a pain stimulus. From there, the pain impulse connects—or “synapses”—through the spinal cord, up to the brain stem at the base of the skull, and into the thalamus. The thalamus acts as a switchboard—it receives input signals from the body and transmits them to various parts of the brain. Pain signals from the thalamus go to the cerebral cortex—the thinking and feeling part of the brain. A highly-developed cortex is required to perceive pain signals. Activity at the nerve endings, spinal cord, or thalamus is not enough. At 13 weeks gestation, the brain stem and thalamus are not functional, anyway. Working connections between the thalamus and the higher cortex do not begin to form until about 20 to 26 weeks, with significant development of neuronal activity continuing after birth.

Going back to what Sarah wrote:

What if you had had an abortion then stared at you aborted baby in the face, and thereafter been so consumed with grief that you are not capable of having a normal life, like me.

I’m sorry you’re so consumed with grief — that’s really awful. But I don’t think your grief justifies outlawing surgical abortion for everyone, as you propose.

I am against surgical abortion ie the cutting up, or sucking apart of a foetus or baby who can feel pain. Yet I realise that there is a demand for abortion and so all abortions should be medical, ie RU486 or prostaglandin etc.

What if after you had had an abortion and afterwards you looked into the science of foetal pain and you were horrified.
http://www.justthefacts.org

The baby is inside your body, attatched to your body, but not part of your body, for 9 months out of your whole life then you can do as wish and give the baby away for adoption.

What if you had had an abortion then stared at you aborted baby in the face, and thereafter been so consumed with grief that you are not capable of having a normal life, like me. Do not laugh at me or attack me because I am not a pro life propagandist, I am a real person who is trying to live through this.

http://sexandthesushi.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-am-pro-choicedeal-with-it.html

I don’t see changing my mind again on the subject.

Like someone else up thread, I’d like to see fewer abortions. I’d like for there to be better access to contraception, better sex ed that includes educating children that they don’t have to say “Yes” to sex to be cool, better education about the expenses of raising children so that people will wait, and so on, all of which, I think, can be used to reduce the number of abortions without ever having to tell a woman “You can’t do that”.

I’m beyond convinced.

Maia, please publish the date/s of key reproductive rights legislation in New Zealand, and I will happily Blog for Choice on that/those date/s as well. Can’t have too much of it!

Why i’m pro choice
1) because I think it is better if we have complete bodily autonomy. i believe in abortion rights. i also believe in allowing voluntary organ sales, allowing folks to kill themselves who want to do so, and pretty much anything which a sane person wants to do to their body. i don’t think we are “holy” or “sacrosanct”.

2) because i can see no way off the slippery slope that comes from compromise. So i don’t.

I don’t claim pretend that the fetus doesn’t die (it does). And I don’t pretend that it doesn’t bother me, in that (just like everyone I know who has had an abortion) I wish abortions happened less often. And unlike many pro-choice folks, i don’t view abortion rights as “fundamental” mostly because I tend not to accept any rights as “fundamental”; i’m more relativistic than that.

But I’ll be damned if I compromise. I am firmly prochoice.

Ron (and anyone who wants to respond ot Ron) please go to one of the many other places on the internet where you can debate the morality of abortion.

With no consideration toward the life of the aborted fetus? Sounds pretty one sided to me.

I’ve surfed the net since about four o’clock this morning, you are the first to point out this anniverary. It ain’t enough that these bastas want to run my life…

It ain’t about Roe v Wade, it’s about runnin’ you girls’ lives. Ain’t what I want to do.

Get up, Stand up; Get up for your rights.