Speaking as a female, it IS the sole responsibility of every female to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It’s not your body your choice, it’s your body your responsibility. Protect yourself with birth control or abstain, these are your only choices. Having said that, I do understand, deeply unfortunately, that there are situations where a woman has no choice about having a sexual encounter, rape.

I was raised with three sisters. You would think that at least one of us would have had an unwanted pregnancy. So, why didn’t it happen? I was told by my parents that if I became pregnant out of wedlock (archaic term lol) that they would not ‘force’ me to marry the father. Two wrongs don’t make it right. But, I was also told that I would have to carry that child to term and give it up for adoption. There are so many childless couples that would jump at the opportunity to have said child. Though I have never asked my sisters, I’m pretty sure they were told the same.

What this did was teach me that I was responsible for making sure that this was not a situation that I would have to deal with, and I made sure it did not happen. I was made to understand that having a child was a gift many were not able to receive. So I went on birth control and, thank goodness, didn’t have to make the decision to abort a child conceived by violence.

I believe the failure goes deeper than individual responsibility. Parents are failing their children by not instilling morals, values, and the required education about sexuality and the responsibility that goes with it. And society is failing our children by promoting sexuality as a right without also teaching the responsibility that goes with it.

I abhor that women believe that abortion should be used as a form of birth control. It is a procedure that should only be used in extenuating circumstances.

Full disclosure, I am not religious. I did go to Sunday school though as soon as I said I didn’t want to go anymore, my parents supported that decision. I am not a feminist in the modern sense but do appreciate what the suffragette movement did for us in respect to being able to vote and own land. And I have been a bit of a rebel against societal norms since a very young age.

My argument against abortion is based on my belief that human beings should be able to control their circumstances for the most part, and that the choices we make come with great responsibility. To me, abortion is being used as a method to absolve women of the responsibility that comes with being sexually active. The term ‘my body, my choice’ should come before the act, not after.

You're right, the only question is: "Is the unborn baby a human being?"
Human rights apply to all humans... that's how they work, or the whole concept is useless.
The entire Pro-LIfe/Anti-LIfe "issue" is only complex to the extent that it's purposefully obfuscated by people who really want to claim the "right" to kill other people; which should sound very-uncomfortably familiar from a historical perspective.
The answer should be excruciatingly simple: Yes it's a human and no you can't kill it, no matter how much you really really want to.... you don't have the right.

Human beings are only capable of procreating one thing: other human beings.
If you want to claim that it's somehow "something else"... you need to come up with some pretty convincing rationale to support that claim... not just wishful thinking and bullshit mantra like "it's a clump of cells". (Newsflash: you are also a clump of cells.)

Many times when attempting to have discussion with any of them & their emotional arguments - demagoguery - it basically comes down to that deep down inside somewhere in their inner recesses of thought, they know it is fundamentally wrong otherwise they would not be appealing to you to approve of the concept. When they start the diatribes on you for no other reason than disagreement with their position, then you know the truth.

The “pro-all abortions are OK” side has to believe that the unborn is not alive... else their whole argument collapse in the moral issues they create.

The “anti-any abortion is wrong” has to believe that mother health and the greater society is less important than the individual.

Both are of course wrong.
However what is the correct answer?

Some cases are very easy to answer:
Baby has serious congenital problem... abort.
Baby risk moms life... abort.

Some are not so easy:
Baby is from rape and will cause severe trauma on mom... not easy but a good reason to abort
Baby cause significant societal hardship... not so easy abort decision.

Some are just difficult to justify abortion :
Baby is really inconvenient right now, maybe later...
Father not really who I want to be the father of my child....

And that is just some simple cases... we have not even started with the tough ones...
How serious must a congenital problem be before you can abort? Down syndrome?
Etc etc.
This is a very complex problem.

Banning abortion is kind of like prohibition. There are things the state should not be involved in. Regardless of the immorality of drunkenness and the human suffering, including the death of innocents, associated with drunkenness pushing it underground proved to be an even greater disaster. The unfortunate reality is that imposed morality is not morality. It is an authoritarian government and those have proven time and time again through out history to be short lived.

The argument against abortion has focused on a definition of human life. It is a problematic approach because we do not know exactly what life is. It's one of those things that we know it when we see it but the details are shrouded in complexity. Beyond the biological complexity the complexity of social structures will obscure any attempt at clarifying social values. In cases of this sort we are forced to reduce the arguments to their simplest possible form.

The question, since it is a question of a social nature, is what is in the best interest of society.

Throughout history the answer has generally been what is in the best interest of the society at large is to discount the interests of the infant. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the success of civilization in producing luxus, the answer has shifted to what is best for the individual. It is in this framework that the liberal answer is contradictory. They have made the answer what is in the best interest of the mother. In almost every other case their argument has been what is in the interest of the helpless. That is in fact the right answer because democracies tend to be mob rule. The liberal tradition is to first and foremost protect the minority, the person without political power. It stems from a similar reasoning that says it is better to let 9 guilty go free than to convict one innocent person.

What has made the question particularly difficult is that the enlightenment, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, have been predicated on determinism. The idea that everything descends from a chain of causes and effects that are understandable with the application of the appropriate objectivity. The unintended consequence has been to remove individual agency and by extension responsibility from the public discourse. In this case the removal of female responsibility for reasonable moral restraint. Not only did determinism remove individual agency but it encouraged the naturalistic philosophy. A philosophy that is sophomoric in it's understanding of the human condition. It proposes a theory of natural law for the unnatural conditions of the civilized environment. An environment for which human emotions are not designed. Civilization makes mute emotional arguments such as my body my choice. You can't have a choice withing the naturalistic philosophy you are simply following your instincts. It once again raises the specter of the inherent contradictions in the liberal argument.

There are times when the interests of the individual must be ignored to preserve civilization. When the traditional liberal ethos of protection for the individual from the interests of the majority cannot be preserved. Conscription for war being the most obvious example. In war many innocent lives are sacrificed for the interests of society. You could just as easily argue about when war is justified as when abortion is justified but the liberal only has an argument against one. Often an almost purely naturalistic argument. An argument based on the purely abstract value of human life.

We cannot avoid complexity all together in consideration of the issue. The civilized argument would be that abortion is always wrong because it is the responsibility of the female to not have an unwanted pregnancy. Such a world however would be emotionally dysfunctional. A sane society requires emotional functionality. A society in which females had little opportunity for sexual satisfaction would be dysfunctional. What is never considered however is how dysfunctional a society will be if it has no respect for human life. That is unfortunately where abortion takes us. It is an extension of the unavoidable deterministic conclusion that we are just zombies without freewill. A determinist will never be able to formulate a non contradictory basis for morality.

I'm not going to offer a solution to the question of abortion because from a sound philosophical basis it is self evident. Whatever it is it has to be an oversimplification that involves some degree of emotional satisfaction. It has to place the value of human life at the center of the argument. It has to recognize the trap that determinism lays. It has to have artificial moral values consistent with the interests of civilization.

Progressives simply prioritize the life of the mother, which really, is what the medical profession has traditionally done. I don’t like the idea of abortion, but do we want the state to force women to carry an unwanted child to term? That’s a terrifying prospect.

The real discussion here should be around why unwanted pregnancy, a 100% preventable condition, is consistently occurring at a such high rate, sopping up massive resources, and causing misery, anxiety, and division on all sides.

Talking about the value of human life is a complete waste of time. Much of humanity does not value it, and never has. The pointless debate will continue until both sides take a more practical approach: prevention of pregnancy would make the abortion industry obsolete.

im not saying their all bad and some. arent better than others but yeah just something to consider in this and other debates. put yourselves in their shoes and hewr the argument from their perspective . Pro-life Christians are just as bad when they start trying to bring the Bible into it. Reality is with abortion if you can't get them to cave on whether it’s a human life or not you arent goijg to get them to change their stance. at best you might get a compromise but i have met very few who are for abortion willing to compromise, it’s all or nothing.