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Everyone's favorite topic, right? Personally, as I have stated, I am against elective abortion (in the case of rape, incest or life of the mother, however, I'm ok with it) because the thought of basically ending a life (and while I am aware that it is not technically life, I cannot honestly say that it is ok because it isnt technically life yet) just seems abhorrent to me. Also, I'm a Catholic, and while I disagree with my church a lot on this subject I think they have a point. However, I do support a woman's right to chose to have an abortion legally because its not really any of my business and no one should be forced to do anything as life-threatening as pregnancy if they chose not to, so legally I support the right to have one but morally I still find it wrong. What are your thoughts?

I agree, North. I think elective abortion is regrettable, from a moral standpoint. Part of me wishes that the pregnancy could have been prevented by other means, but that's not always possible.

As a guy, I have no business lecturing women on what to do with their bodies. If I were a female, I think I would find guys that DO think they have a say in my bodily functions to be assholes. So have all the abortions you want. 

I don't believe that we have an inherent right to do whatever the hell we want with our bodies. See my previous thoughts on libertarian philosophy, as in the case of the cannibal who asked his victim nicely whether he could eat him.

My thoughts on the matter mostly echo Colby's.

However, I am sure I'm not going to convince anyone to reconsider their stance, so I'm not sure I want to get involved with this "debate."

In the context of the Presidential Election thread which spawned this, I only mentioned it in passing as something that really offended me from the Democrat mindset. My pragmatic side simply recognises that, in America today, there are other issues to contend with, and that the abortion battle is a lost battle, so the Democratic focus on gun control and education (particularly Bernie Sanders' policies) are by-and-large the goals I could realistically get behind the most.

I'm not trying to get off-topic, I've just realised I never emphasised that the abortion issue was just one thing, out of a few other things, that would make me hesitant to whole-heartedly support the Democrats.

Long reply, I apologise, but I'm gonna dive in headfirst because why not, right?

Firstly, I want to tackle the inherent right to do what we want to our bodies. I believe that we all have the right to be able to control our own bodies and do what we want providing such actions don't directly harm other human beings around us.

Take smoking for example. While it is a disgusting habit and it does kill, and while it is rightly banned from those too young to understand the long term implications, I feel that smoking is something that should be allowed, providing you don't smoke around others who don't want it. Even though this may impact the health services negatively in future.

To offset the negative cost, as with all things that harm the body, the key isn't to ban the thing. Banning it makes it cool, provides black market incentive to access it, and moves people into the dark. Instead, we should educate people, provide safe havens to help people quit, and provide support for those struggling.

People are going to smoke no matter what you do. Mistakes, peer pressure, you name it. So rather then trying to brush it under the rug, bring it into the open. Won't eradicate it, but will reduce it as more people feel able to get help. This is the same with everything, drugs, alcohol abuse, etc.

Onto abortion. Now I've been in both camps. When I was younger, I was a big Christian. Heavy into the pro-life camp and all that jazz.

As I've grown up, and grown away from religion, I've realised that the world isn't as black and white as it's made out to be. Even with your elective abortion cases, there are a lot more to consider than the unborn child.

Assuming we're all in agreement (so far) that non elective abortion cases are acceptable, which I strongly believe to be the case, consider this for the latter. Is it really healthy for an unborn child to grow up in a family who are unwilling or unable to support the child?

Extreme poverty or neglect from parents are probably worse off for both the child, the parents and society in the long run. Why bring someone into existence for them to have to live through life like that?

And what for cases where the woman in question is in an abusive relationship, even if the sex is consensual?

Finally, the other end of the spectrum where the woman is perfectly able to support the child, and would care for the child, but is not willing due to external circumstances. Say a university degree or something similar. Should she have to put off furthering her career, and change her future because of it?

With women in many countries being more uneducated because we as a society expect them to sit down and be house keepers and look after the children, perhaps this isn't really the best approach for a mistaken one night stand, even if it was consensual and the like.

I've written a lot, but I wanted to give you all something to really bite your teeth into and break down. Seriously, I'm looking for a good debate on this.

Pew Research Polling on Abortion: http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/domestic-issues/abortion/

It's interesting that unlike other 'culture war' items, general opinion on abortion hasn't changed much in the last twenty years...a small majority support and a large minority are against it. On the political side, where I think the Republicans have gone wrong is that they've tried to advance bills that ban abortions in all circumstances, and then made unfortunate comments about rape and women to justify them. I suspect they would be more successful if they attacked abortion in a more pragmatic way...but this is a party that puts ideological purity above practicality...

Personally, I consider myself pro-choice, but I also believe there are things we could be doing to reduce abortions...we could build a better adoption system, we could emphasize the importance of contraception, and we could economically empower women and families and support them (studies show poorer women are more likely to choose abortion). In my mind, the battle shouldn't be to ban it, but to fight the issues that make women more likely to have one and to provide quality alternatives if it turns out to be a child they don't want to keep.

From pre-eclampsia, pregnancy related diabetes, uterine rupture, post-partum infection, blood clots causing thromboembolism and cardiac arrest, pregnancy is far from a riskless venture for a human female. Woman can and do die even given the best medical care available.

As someone who has driven their wife over curvy mountainous icy roads in order to get them to a hospital because labor would be life-threatening to our baby and her in order for her to receive major abdominal surgery (see: c-section), I can personally attest to the life threatening capacity of a normal, planned, monitored pregnancy. There is literally no way to, with 100% accuracy, differentiate a lethal from a normal pregnancy.

So if you tell a woman they do not have the right to terminate their pregnancy, you are asking them to risk their lives. In jurisdictions where abortion is outlawed, see Ireland, see El Salvador, woman can and do die because they are forced to carry non-viable fetuses to term by anti-abortion laws. If you ban abortion, you kill women.

That's not even mentioning that what you'd really be doing is denying proper, legal, regulated medical care to women who will undergo abortions anyway, which also kills.

That's not even mentioning that you will cause countless humans to be born to mothers who either cannot or are unwilling to support them.

That's not even mentioning that you would be disproportionately disadvantaging lower income women who cannot afford to travel to another legal jurisdiction where receiving an abortion would be illegal.

That is not even mentioning that women have a right to the control of their organs. If abortion is illegal, women are forced into donating their body to another human.

I'm sorry I just don't see any good arguments against abortion. Yes, it's not great. No woman wants to undergo abortion, and while the risks are vastly lower than pregnancy itself, the medical procedure of abortion carries its own risks and costs, as with any invasive medical procedure. It's a hard choice for most women, who, if sexually active, spend some portion of their lives wondering if they are pregnant and worrying about what to do about it.

Try to have a little empathy for that woman, who cares more about the fetus that will die as the result of her abortion than you ever can or will, from your perspective of not even knowing her goddamn name. It's even worse if a male or infertile female wants to outlaw it, it's truly arrogant of them to think they know better than she does, since they are entirely incapable of relating.

I'll keep it simple.

I understand arguments from both sides of the field.

However, I myself am not a female, and therefore I don't think it's my place to decide whether a woman should or shouldn't be able to abort something that comes from their body.

It's their body, and therefore their right to decide what they should do with whatever goes in or comes out of it, regardless of what it is.  And as much as it's easy for men to jump in and try to make the rules and throw our reasoning for it, I think men need to shut the hell up about it.  Until us guys have felt what it's like to have something inside of you for nine months whether it be intentional, accidental, a product of rape, or whatnot, then it's not our business dictating what a woman should do with her body.

They're the ones that have to deal with all of the pain, the mood swings, the potential threat of problems with their body conforming to the new life inside, the possibly and sometimes lethal medical issues, and the like.

So let the ones who have to deal with it decide what they want to do.

After all, it's not like we're in desperate need of having every woman forcefully have kids if they tested positive on that pregnancy test since our population is pretty alright at the moment.  If they don't feel like they're either physically, mentally, emotionally, or even financially ready to have a kid, they should be allowed to make that choice early on.

Unless we're in a severe population crisis to where we need to populate to survive, just let the woman - the one who actually HAS to go through all of the shit that we men don't - be the one to decide what to do with HER body.

So I guess in short, I'm pro-choice.  As much as the idea of killing anything that may be alive bugs me, the idea of someone being forced to give birth when they're not ready for it bugs me a little more...and the idea of a parent having to throw their child into the adoption or foster system because they were forced to give birth bugs me that much more.

The system is already clogged to choking capacity with kids that were unwanted by their parents or were taken away from them.  The last thing I want to see is that system being pushed far beyond its capacity because the amount of children in it makes a sudden and dramatic increase because we're forcing women to give birth no matter what.

I second Gabriel on pretty much all accounts. I can say I'm pro-choice based on my stance on individual liberties. However, I'm not against pro-lifers because their rationale is reasonable in some aspects, especially after a fetus' brain activity after 12 weeks. In this case I would never deny an abortion in the case of rape, incest, or maternal health.

Yet it should be a state's responsibility that if they want to ban abortion, they should provide contraception to prevent pregnancy from happening in the first place, which is most likely cheaper in the long run.

For those who would ban abortion even in the instance of rape: it would be rather depressing for a child to learn that they were a product of rape, wouldn't it?

But take that from me, as I am not female and I do not have a uterus.