Number 2

2. Legal abortions protect women's health.

Legal abortion not only protects women's lives, it also protects their health. For tens of thousands of women with heart disease, kidney disease, severe hypertension, sickle-cell anemia and severe diabetes, and other illnesses that can be life-threatening, the availability of legal abortion has helped avert serious medical complications that could have resulted from childbirth. Before legal abortion, such women's choices were limited to dangerous illegal abortion or dangerous childbirth. (from Planned Parenthood's Nine Reasons Why Abortions Are Legal http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/abortion/pub-abortion-legal.xml)

I SAY:

Abortion does NOT protect women's health. Pregnancy and childbirth are natural processes; abortion is not. Since the beginning of humanity, women have been giving birth, and being the only way to continue the human race, it is of course safer than the unnatural procedure of abortion. It is also EXTREMELY RARE that an abortion will improve a woman's health or save her life in the event of any infection or disease. In any case, an effort should be made to protect both the life of the child and the life of the mother. If a mother's life is indeed in danger and she believes she may not survive, she should not choose abortion. Think of it this way- if your child was about to be shot, would you sit back and watch, or would you try to save him or her, even if it meant taking the bullet yourself? Wouldn't you prefer to give your own child a chance to live? In case of such health risks during her pregnancy, the woman and her doctor should work hard to protect the health of both patients.

My next entries will discuss Planned Parenthood's 9 Reasons Why Abortions Are Legal

Number 1

1. Laws against abortion kill women.

To prohibit abortions does not stop them. When women feel it is absolutely necessary, they will choose to have abortions, even in secret, without medical care, in dangerous circumstances. In the two decades before abortion was legal in the U.S., it's been estimated that nearly a million women per year sought out illegal abortions. Thousands died. Tens of thousands were mutilated. All were forced to behave as if they were criminals. (from The Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Website http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/abortion/pub-abortion-legal.xml)

I SAY:

We could say the same thing about robbery, shootings, or any other violent crime. To prohibit them doesn't stop them. We know they will happen anyway, but to make them legal is telling the world that these acts are okay.To allow this is barbaric. Besides, the number of abortions or any other crime is greatly decreased when it is illegal because it is considered wrong. Concerning all the women anti-abortion laws "kill" and the thousands of deaths, what about all the unborn children killed? Over 46 million children have been murdered since Roe vs Wade. Why do they not matter? A few years from now, they(the female ones) would have been grown women that groups like Planned Parenthood claim to support and protect. Why does their helplessness suddenly deny them all rights?

Coming Up Next- Discussion of the Statement: Legal abortions protect women's health

here are some common arguments and my beliefs on them-

on saying the fetus is not a baby-

First of all, if it's not a baby, then how can you be pregnant?                       

- also, when is the precise time it "becomes a baby". is there a certain day? If the baby is aborted the day before, would it be okay, but the day after it be murder?

2- no heart beat argument-   I'm not sure this is the best argument because the heart is beating 24 days after conception, which is a little over 3 weeks. The number of women who actually know they are pregnant by that time is not very big, and those who do would not have had much time to consider abortion before three weeks are over and the baby's heart is beating.

3- "on children being given to abusive foster parents - Firstly, I have known many very loving couples myself who were either unable to have children, or simply decided to adopt a child after their own children were grown and gone. All of these couples had to go all the way to Russia, China, or other countries to adopt when they would have loved to take in a child from their own country. The fact is that there are many, many people who would take in would-have-been-aborted children to love and care for them. I know many people who adopted a child who was almost aborted or almost aborted their own "unplanned" child, and they have all said completely honestly that they couldn't imagine their lives without them.

- Secondly, Abuse is one of the most horrible things that can happen to children, but it is not preventing, but rather, guaranteeing that the child will be abused by committing this horrible, brutal, and violent act of abortion which is THE ULTIMATE  child abuse.

4- if child has birth defect

- But under the condition that this occurred,there are many people who can and would love a child with a birth defect or a disability. Those whose natural children have say, Down Syndrome, love their children. Yes, it is possible.

- most importantly, would this not be the same thing as killing all those who were born with birth defects and disabilities? saying, "No one loves these people. they are not useful, unwanted, unplanned etc.."

5- about babies that may be born into rough families who don't want them--    Let's just say we could know for sure how hard these babies' lives are going to be (which we can't): Well,why is it our business and how would we know if these babies can turn their lives around, make things better, and become successful people? We simply cannot. We cannot determine for them how their lives will turn out. Each individual has his/her right to do this, by striving toward dreams, achieving goals, etc. We don't know the future and cannot know what the future for each child will hold.

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6-  The rape argument is one that I definitely don't understand. Why is it any different than any other "unplanned" pregnancy? The baby was conceived to an unprepared mother, only this time it was forced upon her by some sicko. How does that make the conditions for the baby any worse? It is certainly not the baby's fault, and why he/she should be killed is beyond me...It certainly won't make her forget what happened or anything else.

7- Jesus never promised to save us from physical pain. In fact, he taught us to embrace suffering, to take up our cross and follow him. So to say that God "didn't save them" is incorrect. Jesus died on the cross to save the world from SIN not to stop all pain, sickness, and suffering. We are to help those in pain, and we are to make sacrifices for others ((in this case, going through with the pregnancy and having the baby despite how we feel about it)). I know of a woman who was pregnant with her 10th child. At a point in her pregnancy, she was told that if she had this child she would die. She said,"Well, my child has not had a chance to live yet, while I have. I will give him that chance." and she died. Suffering is a blessing in disguise. Great suffering brings out the humility in people and they are so often very kind, loving people. That is why it is soo important for  all of us women to stop worrying about our rights and personal comfort, and start practicing giving of self and thinking about our obligations to others.

-Kirsty

Here are some pro-life bumper stickers I like.