NationStates Jolt Archive

Have you dramatically switched your stance on abortion?
If not, have you made slight modifications ie. a change in the term limit?

What prompted you to change your position?


* - Pro-choice: It's the mother's choice. However, this may still include limitations, such as parental notification and/or term limits.
** - Moderate: Pro-choice only in very specific situations, such as the mother's life being endangered, rape, and/or incest.
*** - Pro-life: Abortions are always wrong, no exceptions.

I have, when I was about 12. Before that, going to a Catholic school, I was pumped full of the "they're killing babies!!!"-rethorics of the institution, and no emotional manipulation was left out.
At around 12, my brain, awareness, logic and intelligence had evolved enough to see through the bullshit, and also to realise that people who need arguments like those probably need them because otherwise they have very little to go by.
I looked at the facts, I spoke to people who had had abortions, I spoke to doctors, nurses and politically active people and decided that the only morally and logically possible opinion is to be pro-choice.

I have always had the same position: Its wrong and immoral in my eyes, but i have no right to tell a woman what to do with the fetal life in her uterus.

God hates all :o

But I've always been pro-choice, since it won't ever be my choice.

Strongly pro-choice, despite being Christian. And always will be.

I have always had the same position: Its wrong and immoral in my eyes, but i have no right to tell a woman what to do with the fetal life in her uterus.

That is my position too. It will always make me queasy, but politically- I stay away from and out of it.

As far as I remember, I've always been pro-choice.

Since I've thought about it, and learned a bit about it, I agree there should be term limits, though I'm not going to be drawn on making a definite statement about where I think the cut-off should be made. Obviously it's not black/white, but before c.20 weeks (around the time myelination of the spinal cord occurs) is, in my view, a perfectly justified point at which to have an abortion.

I have always had the same position: Its wrong and immoral in my eyes, but i have no right to tell a woman what to do with the fetal life in her uterus.

That's basically my position, as well.

I have, when I was about 12. Before that, going to a Catholic school, I was pumped full of the "they're killing babies!!!"-rethorics of the institution, and no emotional manipulation was left out.
At around 12, my brain, awareness, logic and intelligence had evolved enough to see through the bullshit, and also to realise that people who need arguments like those probably need them because otherwise they have very little to go by.
I looked at the facts, I spoke to people who had had abortions, I spoke to doctors, nurses and politically active people and decided that the only morally and logically possible opinion is to be pro-choice.

similar story myself, when young i was pro life when i grew up and got a bit smarter (at least thats what i like to think any way) i beacme pro choice

i changed my position after seeing a documentary about the foetus and birth, and learning that recent evidence points to the foetus becoming concious and self-aware at about 19 to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

i decided at that point that before then the foetus is a ball of biological matter, and after it is alive and a potential little human. as a result i'm still pro-choice, but only before the 19th week (whatever trimester that is)

I got my good ol' pro-death stance from my mother (well, probably), and this is one of the cases where thinking about it and a wider view of the world haven't made me change my mind.

The "mandatory abortions for all" option is tempting, though. You have to admit it would do the world a lot of good...

Back when I was a fundy (about 12 years ago), I was very much anti-choice. Once I got over the fundy-ism, I quickly became pro-choice and have stayed there ever since.

at one time i didn't have an opinion because i'd never heard of abortion. then i thought maybe the anti-choicers' arguments, while wrong, might have at least some plausibility under certain conditions. now i'm not sure they have anything even close to an argument.

Personally very opposed to abortion, but recognize and respect that it's no one's business what women want to do with their bodies. I do, however, think we should prevent as many abortions as possible through public awareness and sex education to teach people about birth control methods, so that the number of unwanted pregnancies caused by unprotected sex is reduced.

In my 9th grade civics class, I was on the pro-life side, but at some point within the next year I became pro-choice, and have been ever since.

I used to be pro-choice. Then I got sick of trying to be civil in debates with people who didn't live in the world. That was when I became pro-mandatory abortion. After all, then I can just shrug and say, "yeah, I'm pro-death. What of it?"

I've always been personally opposed to abortion, but I'm fairly certain I've always been pro-choice as well.

If anything has changed, it is that my opinion of those who choose to have abortions has been altered. When I was younger, I think the image of who might have an abortion was quite skewed in my head. Of course, at the time, I though I didn't know anyone who had done so (I was wrong, of course). After actually meeting women who have had to face that choice, I realized that none of us can really say what we would do in such a difficult situation until such a time as we live it. Women who have abortions are normal, every day people just like the rest of us - they have just been faced with an incredibly difficult choice that most of us hopefully will never have to make.

i got my pro-choice stance from my mother and have never been pro-life.

i got my pro-choice stance from my mother and have never been pro-life.

If you're pro-choice, you're by definition pro-life so far as I'm concerned. It's the anti-abortion folks who are really anti-life.

Isn't everybody pro-choice and pro-life? If this thread is about abortion, then I believe it should be allowed, but these terms are a bit indescriptive.

Abortion was actually the first issue I changed my opinion on back when I began diverging from my fundamental Christian upbringing about two years ago.

Thank you Cat-Tribe.

I've always been pro-choice, and it is more than likely that I always will be. I've never heard a good argument against abortion--legally or morally--and I've heard 'em all. If some new and persuasive argument comes along, guess it's possible I'll change. But I don't see such an argument coming along anytime soon. As for where I got my stance...well, Reason and Rationality. I'm not even sure what my parents views are/were, so I didn't get it from them.

I've been pro-choice ever since I've known there was a debate about abortion. At one point I was so versed on it that during a formal debate for class that two of my friends were in, I literally recited what they were going to say while they were saying it.

i've been pro-choice all along. although i've got from being entirely apathetic about the whole thing, to realising i find it distasteful and sickening. but i also know that it is often the only or most preferable course of action when all things are considered and i believe that in every instance it is the pregnant woman's right to choose. i don't know enough to put term limits on it.

I've always held that most abortions should be legal up until the second trimester, and only allowed later than that in order to save the mother's life. I guess that could be considered moderate.

If you're pro-choice, you're by definition pro-life so far as I'm concerned. It's the anti-abortion folks who are really anti-life.

very much so. but im not going to nitpick over the different factions' preferred names.

I've extended my pro-choice view to include post-birth "abortions" for up a few months.

Something I do find a bit strange is how abortion seems to be a massive issue in the US, but here in Blighty it's pretty much a non-issue (NI is different, of course, but we don't hear much about it on the mainland). I had very rarely even thought about it before I started infrequenting this forum.

Pro-choice and always have been, just wish that people didn't have to make the choice in the first place.

Pro-choice and always have been, just wish that people didn't have to make the choice in the first place.

Absolutely. I like Bill Clinton's formulation on abortion: they should be safe, legal and rare. You get there, of course, by making birth control and sex-ed widely available, by making morning after pills and emergency contraception readily available, and by removing roadblocks to women's choices for abortions when those women believe they're necessary.

Absolutely. I like Bill Clinton's formulation on abortion: they should be safe, legal and rare. You get there, of course, by making birth control and sex-ed widely available, by making morning after pills and emergency contraception readily available, and by removing roadblocks to women's choices for abortions when those women believe they're necessary.

That sums up my views on the subject perfectly.

What Mandatory abortions for all? I want to change my vote! More dead babys = more dead baby jokes

If you're pro-choice, you're by definition pro-life so far as I'm concerned. It's the anti-abortion folks who are really anti-life.

QFT.

I have, when I was about 12. Before that, going to a Catholic school, I was pumped full of the "they're killing babies!!!"-rethorics of the institution, and no emotional manipulation was left out.
At around 12, my brain, awareness, logic and intelligence had evolved enough to see through the bullshit, and also to realise that people who need arguments like those probably need them because otherwise they have very little to go by.
I looked at the facts, I spoke to people who had had abortions, I spoke to doctors, nurses and politically active people and decided that the only morally and logically possible opinion is to be pro-choice.

My cousin's a junior at a Catholic school and one time I asked, "So what do you think of abortion?"

He, of course, is completley pro-life, and said abortion was part of his "morality class." I was going to argue that abortion makes the crime right drop, but we're REALLY close and I didn't think arguing would get us anywhere.

Until you've had a doctor say to you. "The child could be a real mess" I don't think you have a clue as to your stand on abortion. Thinking in the abstract is one thing, facing reality is another.