[godfrey n. glad]

Originally posted by AlphaGamDiva
[B]but again, no one wants to accept their consequences or take responsibility.

you say no one wants to take responsibility, but you have also alluded to people you know having had abortions that have struggled with that decision and also may be permanently affected by that decision. How do these two things jive? To me, that IS taking responsibility: accepting that YOU are the one making this decision, the outcome of which is yours to accept. Making that decision is the toughest thing in the world because you know you have just taken on the responsibility of doing something that is controversial, painful and that will affect you for the rest of your life. Shirking a responsibility would be never having to acknowledge that a painful chice was before you or that it wasn't really your choice to make. If you think that's how women who have abortions feel usually, you are simply mistaken. In fact, I think if abortions were illegal, women would be shirking responsibilities a lot more. Understanding that they have no choice in whether they will bear a child or not would allow them to avoid taking responsibility for that child.

i'm sorry but this is a sensitive subject with me, too, b/c a would-be member of MY family was taken away from us.....and no matter what her excuse, it still hurts......all of us.

do you also grieve over the many, many miscarried children that WOULD have been part of your family? You do realize that possibly over half of pregnancies are spontaneously aborted before the mother even knows she's pregnant? It would seem to me that, if you grieve the loss of that child so much, you ought to also grieve the loss of all the fertilized embryos that all of your female relatives have, unbeknownst to them, carried and lost. If only they hadn't spontaneously aborted, that child WOULD HAVE become part of your family. Are you sad for those dead babies? If not, why? It shouldn't matter that it was spontaneous as opposed to instigated by a human, as that doesn't change the fact that the embryo WOULD have developed into a child, had an obstacle (human or natural) not interefered. That embryo, IMHO, doesn't deserve less recognition simply because it was spontaneously aborted. I would grieve the death of my mother just as much if she was taken from me in an accident as opposed to a murder. I wouldn't miss her any less in the former situation. Do you see?