I came from a good family and this was not something my parents ever expected to happen to me. I was still a child myself and there was no way I could have a child. My parents chose for me to terminate the pregnancy. It took a long, long time for me to come to terms with it. I knew in my head it was the right thing for my situation and it wasn’t until I had my son last year that I was really at peace with it all. It was the right decision. There is no part of me that regrets it. I only regret that the situation ever happened to begin with and I didn’t tell him no.

One of my first thoughts when I had my son was that I was so glad he was going born from love from me and my husband. I can’t even imagine the poor quality of life me and the baby would have had if I had been a 15 year old mother. I would have most likely never met my husband and therefore wouldn’t have my son now.

I wish more people were educated on birth control methods including natural family planning. I think this is key to making abortions very rare.

This event in my life changed who I am forever. Before I thought abortion was awful and could never understand how someone would do that. I will never judge a woman whether she’s 14 or 40 who seeks an abortion. It is a very personal decision that is not taken lightly. I guess you can never truly know what it’s like until you walk in someone else’s shoes.

I HEART GINADC!

I think this is really simplistic. Just “knowing where babies come from” doesn’t mean you have the first idea about how to *keep* from having a baby. It’s been pretty well proven that abstinence-only sex ed courses are a dismal failure at this, and yet they’re the ones being pushed by our government. I heard a scary NPR piece a year or so ago, in which kids who’d been through some abstinence-only sex ed course were talking with great certainty about the “fact” that condoms don’t work at all to prevent sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy. It wasn’t that these kids weren’t probably going to have sex anyway–they just weren’t going to use condoms because they’d been taught they were useless!

Sex education in this country is woefully inadequate and a lot of young people have similarly incredible misconceptions. And lack of accurate sex ed information is just one of many factors that puts women in the position of having an unplanned pregnancy. So simply to blithely state that “you know where babies come from” ignores these realities.

I also believe that no matter what the decision about an unplanned pregnancy, the woman is indeed “living with the consequences.” No matter whether she chooses parenting, adoption, or abortion, she has made a decision that she will have to live with. She needs support and good counsel and information in making that decision, but ultimately that decision is hers–no one else can make it for her.

Finally, I’m not sure about this statement: “With better education of options, the dreams of couples could come true.” Honestly, young women who are pregnant unexpectedly, especially if they’re single, teenagers, poor, etc., *frequently* are “educated” about their option to choose adoption. (They sometimes have it pushed on them to an insane degree–I’ve talked with young women who’ve gone through this.) And I would again say that it is not the job of any pregnant woman to make my dreams, or the dreams of anyone who wants a child, come true. It is her job to make the best decision for herself at this time, and the “education” on options she should get should be unbiased, not designed to persuade her to choose either adoption, abortion, or parenting. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of counseling alternatives available like that. But a woman who has an unplanned pregnancy deserves counseling from an advocate with no agenda other than helping to determine what’s best for that woman.

miel, I think I come from the point of view that it is as morally wrong to force a woman to undergo a pregnancy that she doesn’t have the emotional, physical or economic wherewithal to deal with, as it is to terminate that pregnancy. To me, it is the difference between usurping the life of an independent human being, the woman, or stopping a living organism from ever becoming an independent human being. Both of those are fraught with moral ambiguities.

I am completely pro-choice in my belief that ultimately, it must come down to the will of the woman who is pregnant, but I, like many MANY other pro-choice advocates, am pro-life in that I believe abortion should be a last resort of sorts. That is not to say that women should have to jump through legal hoops to get one. I don’t believe that. I simply believe that we need to do everything possible to ensure that as few unplanned pregnancies as possible come into being, through appropriate sex education, access to contraceptives, and access to emergency contraceptives.

What we need to always recognise is that there is far more leading to both the unplanned pregnancy rate and the abortion rate than simply some sort of ‘personal irresponsibility’. There are systemic weaknesses that lead some groups in society not to get adequate sex ed or access to contraception. There are also systemic weaknesses that force women to make the choice not to parent, and not to continue the pregnancy. We need to look at those at the same time as we look at individual rights, because far too many women are finding themselves backed into a corner with no choice but abortion.

My pro-choice stance means then, that I’m pro-life for both unborn children AND their mothers. The anti-abortion campaign seems to me to value the life of an unborn embryo or fetus, (not yet capable of living or experiencing outside the woman’s body) OVER the life of the woman who carries it, which makes no sense to me.

Parenting is an incredible responsibility to take on. As is, we complain about people who are not ‘good enough’ parents. So it makes no sense to force parenting on people who cannot cope. But pregnancy is also an incredible responsibility, and an expensive one in some countries (in New Zealand, pregnancy care is free, so that’s not such a relevant concern for us), and I just don’t think we can expect or insist that women should go through that physical, mental, emotional and social upheaval without being completely and utterly willing to do so.

In a certain way, this is true. But there are many places on this spectrum.

I haven’t thought this through but I mention some of these gradations below. I call them ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ but I have a feeling people might define these terms differently. E.g., someone who morally objects to all abortion could say she is ‘pro-life’ and then turn around and say it has to be legal. The reason she might do this is because most public advocates of the pro-choice position never morally condemn abortion. So it seems that it is ‘pro-life’ to do so.

I’m not saying this is accurate. I do agree with you, lawyerlee that if you agree abortion should be legal you should regard yourself as pro-choice. I just think that there is a reason people aren’t so clear about that.

Strong pro-life: Abortion is morally equivalent to murder from the moment of conception. Thus, no intentional termination of pregnancy can be legally or morally permitted.

Moderate pro-life: Abortion is seriously wrong but may be less wrong than murder and so abortion in certain very exceptional cases (rape, incest, certain death) can be permitted. However, abortion should be illegal for all other cases.

Sort of in-between both views: Abortion is only permissible in the very, very early part of a pregnancy.

Moderate pro-choice: Abortion is morally wrong in many cases and should be discouraged in every way possible. However, it would be a grave imposition on women’s ability to determine questions of moral right or wrong to prohibit abortion in the first trimester.

Strong pro-choice: Abortion is never morally wrong. Abortion should be permitted beyond the first (or second) trimester.

Strongest pro-choice: Abortion is never wrong up until the child leaves the womb (or even after in some cases). Abortion in the third trimester is totally fine morally and should also be legal.

You may say no one has the strongest pro-choice view but I can show you a variety of places this has been argued for. I definitely hear people say “Pro-choice = X” (e.g., that all pro-choice advocates forbid termination after the first trimester) but then many pro-choice advocates do argue otherwise. But of course, Roe v. Wade allows abortion on demand only in the first trimester and thereafter the issue is fuzzier.

I predict that if the strongest pro-life position were the only option, many more people would regard themselves as pro-choice. I think people say they are pro-life but when push comes to shove they will not vote for that as their only option.

Then again, I have a feeling most people are not very strong pro-choice because they regard abortion as usually morally wrong. This is not to say that what people believe is a sign of what is true but more that the politics will shift drastically when different options are on the table.

We were having difficulty getting pregnant, which started our adoption path. We looked to several adoption agencies in our city and there were extremely long waiting lists for infants surrendered at birth of any race. I teach in an inner city school and we had spoken to several pregnant teens who ultimately chose to parent. We contacted social services as well, however, DH was not willing to foster to adopt because he lived in a foster home as a teen and understands the court system and how often children are placed with parents even when it is obvious to the foster family it is not in the child’s best interest. He was not willing to put himself through the emotional roller coaster of foster parenting, and I had to respect his wishes, even if I didn’t agree with them.

Instead, we chose to adopt from Vietnam, and began the paper chase. Two months later, I found out I was pregnant, which put the adoption on hold for now. We will continue with it in 2 or 3 years when DD is older.

In re-reading my post, I do not mean that there are “no” children available for adoption BECAUSE of abortion. However, with better education of options, the dreams of couples could come true.

My biggest point was that life is full of choices and if you make them, you must be willing to take the consequences. They are not always easy or desirable, but anyone who has been through elementary sex ed knows where babies come from.