Fetus: literally "young while in womb/egg". Common: unborn baby mammal, or baby human >8 weeks after conception.
Abortion is a deeply personal view, and I used to explore people by asking or sharing my views on it and seeing how they respond.I often did the same with all the taboo subjects: sex, drugs, religion -- anything that's personal and invoked passion will let you learn how intellectual/emotional a person is, and hint at how extreme they are, by what positions they take and how they deal with conflicting views. It's a shortcut to getting to know them. But the flip side, is you also may learn to avoid people who are otherwise decent people -- as there are people that are moderate/reasonable/rational, except for one or two outlier/hot-button issues. And this is often the hottest, and might be an outlier.
This article covers many aspects of the topic, in what I hope is a somewhat neutral and informed way, though I openly have and express my opinions. The point is not to change anyone's mind, and I leave people room for their own personal views. Though I have far less tolerance for the furthest extremes on either side, and less tolerance for bullies who show less tolerance towards others views. I don't like never or always answers type answers, and I like bullies who lower the conversation less. And I find more bullies in the extremes, especially if they think they're in the majority, and more so when they're trying to force-feed their "one true" view on the entire rest of the nation.
(Disclosure: I'm pro-choice first trimester, pro-life at viability, like most Americans)
Republicans would take away a woman's choice, late term abortions are mostly done for health of the mother/baby, Roe v Wade was good law and protects a Woman's right to choose. Repealing it would outlaw abortions and make Women into chattel.
Democrats and Republicans are both split on where life begins (and abortion should be allowed), most Americans are against 3rd trimester abortions, and 99% of 3rd trimester abortions are done for reasons other than health of the mother/fetus, and Roe v. Wade was Judicial overreach, and without it, most states would still support 1st Trimester abortion (37 States had already legalized it before Roe, and many more would since): so the fight isn't about choice, it's about how viable a baby should be before we protect it from extermination.
I did a video of a toastmasters speech (2008-2009) on my views on Abortion, which sums up my views that I started researching and forming my views in the late 1970's which annoyed my feminist English or Social Studies teachers. I wrote editorials in the 80's, and I have researched and reflected on my views ever since. This article covers that video and more. The goal is not to attack other people's views, but to share information for those who want to understand the issue deeper.
Whatever poll you use, it has been fairly consistent, that the majority of Americans are both for and against abortion. Both sides will tell you that ≈80% of people support their position, and both are telling the truth.... just not the whole truth. The way this works is that the polls ask if you want abortion legal, illegal, or mostly legal/illegal -- and then both sides stack everything but the opposite extreme in their camp. The whole truth is that the majority of Americans want abortion legal: and want more restriction than we currently have.
General support/opposition for abortion is nearly the same across parties. However, since pro-abortion fanatics fund the DNC (and media), and their positions would shock and horrify the public, they need to distract and pretend that the other side would ban all abortions. While the RNC might include a few more restriction, there's nowhere near the support for anything close to a ban. While the DNC has supported things like: no parental notification if your pre-teen daughter is molested and gets one, forcing government and religious institutions to pay for them, 3rd trimester abortions, and even allowing the murder of full term babies accidentally born alive.
The vast majority of Americans want more restrictions. That is, if they understand what the current restrictions (or lack of them) are. While democrats and their media have done a great job of duping people into thinking the choice is all or nothing, the truth is the opposite of slippery-slope: banning 3rd trimester abortions does not increase the odds of banning 1st trimester ones -- it reduces pressure and funding for anti-abortion groups which can build momentum on the horrors or 3rd trimester abortions. Removing that takes away their most gruesome pictures. Abortion is less a fight in Europe, because most of Europe has far more limits than the U.S..
The scale of abortion is sickening: ≈800K per year, or twice as many American deaths as WWII. Late term abortions (defined as >20 weeks) runs about 12K per year, or roughly twice as many American deaths as Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined. 25% of all Women will have one: 44% of them will have two, and half of those will be on a third or greater. These don't count over-the-counter abortifacients, like the "Day After" pill. Too many women are using abortion as birth control.
Margaret Sanger founded planned parenthood on the idea of exterminating inferior brown babies, so they'd stop outbreeding white ones. And when you look at abortion statistics by race, the numbers show her eugenics plan in actions, with 87% of babies being black or latino. And remember that's under half the population having nearly 90% of the abortions. I find it ironic that the left pretends to be the ally of the minorities that it is helping to selectively exterminate.
While the abortion advocates will try to convince you that we need abortions for Health of Mother (2.8%), Health of Fetus (3.3%), or rape/incest (>1%), those are not what most abortions are done for (<6%). That means about 19 out of 20 abortions are just done for convenience: they could easily give the child up for adoption. That doesn't make convenience wrong, or mean I want to micro-manage others decisions: but the whole "medical necessity" or "rape/incest" canards are a fraud repeated by activists or the uninformed. We can keep it legal in those cases, and still eliminate 94% of abortions.
Late term abortions are even worse. Some will claim "fetal problems" or "health of the mother", but both are barely a blip (≈1%). The other 99% are just variations of "didn't know" until you were in the 7th month, or was afraid and so on. I support a right to choose before 20 weeks -- but if you've let the baby grow to where it has a beating heart, brain waves, and is viable (or on the cusp), then you're not forcing a mother to have a baby at that point -- she's going to have to birth it either way. The only question is whether you'll kill it first.
While the far left will misrepresent any reasonable restriction as trying to "take away a woman's right to choose" or "war on reproductive rights", the truth is most people (including Republicans) support abortion in the first trimester (especially in cases of rape/health of mother). The real question is where are the reasonable places to limit abortions. The dems attack because they don't want to have to defend their fanatical position on the following:
Spousal notification - a father can be forced to pay for a child he has no say in, including the ability to test to see if it is really his
Parental notification of minors - parents get no say in their child's decision (only procedure your child can get without permission)
Informed consent - can you make clinics explain the risks of abortion, or how far in development the fetus is
State/Community rights - do you allow communities to set different standards, or is this a federal-only issue?
Financing - forcing other people (including churches or the morally opposed) to pay for abortions
Any limits - the left supports abortions of full term babies (and beyond). Most of the public does not.
Science says life begins at conception... or at least something like heartbeat, brainwaves or viability. It certainly begins significantly before birth or where abortion activists put it. But that doesn't mean (to me) that's when a human being should get all rights and privileges conferred on them. Something like 1/3rd of pregnancies end in miscarriage, likely more if you include ones where women didn't even know they were pregnant -- so there's some grey areas. I'm not on either extreme that thinks it's just a parasitic clump of cells until the final seconds of birth, nor that it's a sentient being from the merging of the first two cells and before implantation. I fall where the majority do, that abortion should be allowed in the first trimester, but at viability it's getting too murder-ish for me.
Progressive activist racist eugenicist founded Planned Parenthood to exterminate as many inferior (brown) babies as possible, to advance white protestantism. The party that loves to hate and remove Confederate heroes and statues has no problem worshiping at the feet of their bigots: proving all standards don't apply equally.
The EU is far more restrictive on Abortions than the U.S. So the progressives that claim the U.S. should be more like Europe, are usually ignorant or sometimes dishonest.
Abortion is a deeply personal view, and I have no problem with how people come down on it (as long it is thoughtfully decided). While Roe v. Wade fits my personal beliefs (1st Trimester legal, 3rd illegal), it was a lousy and Unconstitutional ruling that invented law from the bench by imagining powers in the 14th (100 years after the fact) that the authors and ratifiers disagreed with, it violated the 10th and 11th, it made things much worse by polarizing and dividing us AFTER 37 states had already legalized abortion. Then Planned Parenthood v. Casey made it a far worse decision (3rd trimester legal, which collided with Roe). Most legal scholars have admitted that it was a lousy ruling, and it made the nation a worse place. And repealing it would do nothing to the places that are outraged over the thought, since that would just push it back to the states (which had already legalized it).
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With those stats/facts in mind, remember which side is the extremists in the abortion discussion: Abortion : 6 items
Gosnell is the Citizen Cane of our generation. Not that I think it was the best movie ever made (but then I don't think that of Citizen Cane either), nor just because one of the lead actors in the movie is Dean Cain. But that the forces of collectivism and certain powerful personalities tried to suppress it being made, and it told an important story about that suppression. As it stays truer to the facts, and is almost a reenactment documentary, it's even better than Citizen Cane. As the director (Nick Searcy) said, "There are three aspects to this story that are fascinating. What happened; why it was allowed to happen; and why no one wanted to talk about it after it happened." So no matter what side the Abortion issue you come down on, and whether you support Roe v. Wade or not (I'm pro-choice myself), this was a fascinating story on how much the "abortion at any cost" crowd allowed, in the name of their agenda. Since I value truth more than a political agenda, I found it very worthwhile, I suspect many that put their agenda above bad behavior will hate the movie.
2019.09.25 Hiding the Abortionist - FakeNews includes lies of omission and deciding newsworthy stories need to be buried or not reported on, because they contradict their political agenda. Like ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, PBS all ignoring the story (NYT and CNN burying it) of an Indiana/Illinois abortionist (Ulrich Kopfer) who had died on Sept. 3., and then the remains of 2,246 aborted babies were founded neatly labeled and preserved (as trophies) in his Garage. Kopfer had lost his abortion license in 2015 for failing to report the rape of a 13-year-old patient and numerous other health violations. The only reason for considering that story not Newsworthy and suppressing it, is political agenda: which is also what they did about Gosnell. All the news that's fit to hide from the public, is not in any of the mastheads of these supposed News outlets, but it should be.
2019.02.01 Va. Gov Ralph Northam - Poor Ralph, the Democrat Governor for Virginia, got caught dressing up for Halloween in blackface (1984). Of course CNN reported him as a Republican, but like many racist politicians, he is devoutly Democrat. The NYT tried to spin it as "Dark Makeup", as if his smokey eye got out of control. So long Ralph, we hardly knew ya.
I'm pro-choice (read Abortion for more background), but whether you're pro-choice or pro-life, you should be offended by the dishonestly named NY "Reproductive Health Act" that the Democrats and Cuomo just passed, and all of its provision. They claim this is about protecting Roe v Wade -- they are liars: it has virtually nothing to do with that.
1994.02.03 Mother Teresa v Hillary Clinton - In 1994 during the National Prayer Breakfast, First Lady Hillary Clinton asked Mother Teresa, "Why do you think we haven't had a Woman President yet?". Mother Teresa replied, "Because she was aborted". There are a few variants of the story that have been told (and slight variants on date), so it might be lore. But it completely fits with the character and views of both the participants. And Mother Teresa had challenged the Clintons on abortion during the event.
Conclusion
Anyone that calls me an extremist or pro-lifer is a liar, polemic or moron. My position align with most Americans in that I'm pro-choice in the first trimester, and I'm pro-life at viability (with a little padding). I'm even more pro-choice than my wife and many Americans in that I'm fine with abortions up to about 20 weeks. While the extremes are at conception and birth, most people start considering a baby a human being with something else like 3 weeks (when the heart starts beating), 6 weeks (brain activity), 8 weeks (quickening and the baby starts moving around), 10 weeks (when the baby can do coordinated moves like hiccup, stretch, yawn, suck, swallow, grasp, and thumb-suck), or 12-14 weeks (when they start having memory and not startling at repeated noises).
Where a lot of people get confused is they assume because you are against a bad ruling (Roe v. Wade) they think that means you're against the cause. I like the Roe v. Wade framework, even though the Supreme Court had no authority to make it. It was a later/worse decision (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) that undermined Roe and allowed so much doctors discretion and terminations up to 24 weeks, and it's so poorly enforced, that virtually thousands of viable babies were born live and crying, and killed because of doctors discretion. Some like Kermit Gosnell were sent to prison for extending the rules beyond those limits, but only after 30 years of cover-ups. So I can be both pro-choice, and against judicial activism and the genocide of viable full-term babies, and think Roe was a bad ruling, and Casey was worse. It's called having a personal position and not being willing to give up your integrity to "win" or support it. If the Democrats tried that more often, I'd still vote with them.
