I usually say Ixnay on talking politics, religion etc...but

[Flanigan]

I was in the shower this morning thinking about Palin's answer to the abortion question. You know when you ask a ProLife person a what if?
So I thought...what if that were me answering that exact question but I had to be playing the republican role to the republican right wings? Now for me honesty has not always been the best policy, or it hasn't resulted in the best turn out. I find many people DON'T want to be told the truth. So here is my opinion and I just want to know how people feel about this issue these days.
Morally I am ProLife and I believe it's how God would want it, but logically I am ProChoice and still think God would understand. I think that when a woman is in a place where she has to make that decision she should be counselled in a specific direction depending upon the situation. I think there should be a limit as to how many a woman should be able to get (because it's not birth control) and I think that the time frame should also be taken into consideration, because there is a time where a cellular existance become a human existance.
Now in the case of a woman getting raped, or there has been a situation where it's incest, you are dealing with a human that has something psychologically (likely genetically) wrong with them. I don't think it's a good idea to produce another human who could potentially grow up with the same genetic defect.
At this point we can argue nature vs. nurture, but biologically genes pass and that's a fact.
How do you think you would feel despite how nurtured you were that your Grandpa is your father? Or that your father was a rapist and you were conceived in sadness and hate...ya...I think that nature would have you pretty pissed and nurture would only go so far.
That's it...my shower thought for the day...
What's you opinion on this matter?
So in this day and age, can there be a ProLife/ProChoice?

[Tom Clark]

I get asked this question a lot being a republican. when I get asked my response is "I am prolife, but only because I have a choice. If the Goverment were to take from women the right to choose, I would fight for the pro-choice movement."

As a Republican I believe that government should stay the hell out of my wallet, my bedroom, and my healthcare decisions. I disagree with my right wing friends that believe my morallity trumps your right to make certain decisions. It sucks that abortions are abused, in fact it pisses me off. But I can't say "not all corporations are bad, they don't need to be regulated" and then turn around and regulate the rights of women because some women are bad.

The hard question for me is scientifically when does life begin and an abortion becomes the taking of that life: conception, a heartbeat, birth. I simply don't know the answer to that question. Personally what I know is that life began for my daughter the minute I learned my wife was pregnant. That makes me pro-life.

[Flanigan]

Thanks for the reply. I agree with your points!
My opinion is life of another being begins the moment of conception even if it is just cellular life. However, living cells live and die constantly, we kill our "living cells" all the time by just living.
I have found in life it's always easy to make decisions for other people but not always easy to make them for yourself.
Anywhoskis...

[IndigoThirdEye]

Here's the problem I think with the ProLife/ProChoice question.

If you believe in God, and a soul, you might find yourself in the debate as to when the soul enters the body, when Life begins, and when the baby becomes conscious. However, if you are an atheist, then you may not believe in God or a soul, and that we are merely matter and energy that passes with the winds, and that the fetus is not sentient until birth (or possibly just before). One side views abortion as murder, the other views it as an exercise in personal freedoms. It's a problem of dogma vs freedom of choice.

Now with that in mind, doesnt the ProLife/ProChoice question lead you to believe it is a religious question? If that's the case, then the First Amendment strictly prohibits an establishment of religion, and therefore laws based on religious beliefs. So, this leads me to believe that the ProLife/ProChoice question is a religious one, and therefore not open for debate on a Government level. Separation of Church and State. I think the ProLife/ProChoice question is a matter of personal belief and responsibility, and something upon which each person must govern from within themselves. Just as we have no right to force religion on the masses, we do not have the right to pass religious beliefs into law.

Additionally, what happens when you make it illegal? Do you put women in jail? If so, would the time of punishment be the same as murder of a child or adult?

[Ryan Jerz]

Then wouldn't all morals be subject to the First Amendment? And you can't possibly think the Founding Fathers (nor a vast majority of Americans) meant for the First Amendment to be twisted in that way.

The moral question is really the only one that matters. Should we define when life begins, or should we not? I believe we should. Sure, it would make any religious person offended to even live here, but that's the fundamental thing being debated. Nobody (nobody sane, anyway) wants to take away anyone's right to choose what to do with their own body. But the serious Pro-lifers are arguing that it's not only your body that you're doing something with. Without a definition of when life begins, the problem will persist.

If we're going to bring the Constitution into it, then let's really bring the Constitution into it. Send abortion as an issue back to the states. There are 50 of them here, and there can be 50 definitions (the intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was to strictly define only certain powers the Federal Government could have and let the states decide the rest) for what constitutes a legal abortion. To a major degree, the Constitution has been bastardized with any number of laws (gun restrictions are one other example). I think most of us would agree that it's a good thing that has happened, or the states may have run roughshod over our rights and never looked back.

It's an amazingly difficult question. But it can be solved easily (albeit by pissing off a huge chunk of people just by definition) if the Court decided to either define when life begins or decided to take its hand out.

[Elisa Maser]

Really an incredibly thoughtful way to frame the question, and I'm also impressed by the responses so far.

Full disclosure: I work for Planned Parenthood, so I have a bias. This isn't an official response; it's a personal one.

It IS a complex issue - what's the line about rushing in where angels fear to tread? Defining when life starts is a tall order, and morally we're talking human life - not cellular life, right?

Personally, I've always liked Carl Sagan's take on the subject. That our legal / moral concern is with human life, meaning the presence of the human soul - not the mechanics of the body (machines can keep a heart pumping long after death). At the end of our lives, we measure the presence of our human-ness, our soul, by monitoring brain waves. And when the same measure is applied to a fetus, one generally finds brain wave activity only in the last trimester. Sagan argued that the Supreme Court got the answer right in "Roe v. Wade," just not the reasoning.

Food for thought anyway.