(09-06-2021, 03:18 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote:

(09-06-2021, 06:41 AM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: Some of you have a very distorted view of what would happen to unwanted children who would be born if abortion was banned. Very, very few would be brought into the world and lead a good life with their biological parents. People who don't want children aren't gonna miraculously change their mind and treat their kids like a child that is actually wanted. Others just say put them up for adoption, like that would fix the problem. I've been reading some stats and they aren't pretty. More than 60% of the children in foster care spend 2-5 years in the system. That number gets exponentially larger for disabled and minority children. 20% spend over 5 years in the system and over 17,000 kids a year exit foster care without ever being adopted. On any given day, there are over 125,000 kids in foster care. The majority of which can never return to their biological families. In 2020 the government spent over $5 billion on foster care.

We also see story after story of the abuse cases of unwanted children and children in foster care. It's a never ending cycle, because there aren't enough case workers in America. It's a thankless job that pays next to nothing, you see horrendous things and workers are overloaded to completely unreal amounts of case loads. If abortion is made illegal again, the numbers of abused and murdered children will skyrocket and the foster care system will become even more broken than it is now. Which I didn't know was possible. You will see more deaths from back alley abortions, more children murdered, more children abused and more children abandoned. That's simply a fact. IMO, it's selfish to force children into such existences. Sure, a small percentage will go onto be adopted and live good lives, but given how many children are already in bad situations, adding to that amount just seems cruel.

I know some of you say abortion is murder, but the fact is, not everyone sees this as a reality. This country is completed divided over when a person actually becomes a person. That is never gonna change. You'll never convince some people to agree with you no matter how right everyone believes they are. It's just pushing your belief system onto other people and I'm completely against that. That is something the Taliban would do. They are inflicting their beliefs on everyone in Afghanistan and I think we can all agree that this is a bad thing. Why is it ok to inflict your beliefs on people in this situation and not in that one? As I said, not everyone views when a person becomes a person, in the same way. It's an individual belief, but some people want to force others into abiding by their beliefs by banning abortion.

No one likes abortion. I wish it wasn't necessary, but you will NEVER force people into being responsible, no matter how much you try to make them. That is just a fact. By forcing them to carry the children, only the kids will suffer. Many will be born to parents that see them as a burden and they will either be treated poorly by their biological parents/parent, will be abandoned by a parent, murdered by a parent or will be placed into an already broken system, that can't handle the amount of children that are already there. I just don't understand how these are good options? To me, it's a necessary evil. People are given free will. In that, some people will make good decisions and others will make many poor life choices. That's just how life is. When you have free will, you must take the good with the bad.

Ok, let me tackle this. There are currently 12 million couples on the adoption waiting list. There are 36 families wanting to adopt for every child available. If every person that had an abortion were instead required to put their child up for adoption, it would take 10 more years to match every family to a child, and this is with no other family being added to the list. To make this worse, one quarter of all adoptees come from outside of the US, which is a direct result of parents not being able to adopt children in the US. There is no shortage of people wanting to adopt. 

Furthermore, the narrative that every child would be unwanted or unloved is unproveable. Just because a person doesn't want a child at the time of conception, doesn't mean they won't want it when it's born. This happens all the time to adoptive couples. A young woman doesn't want the child, so she puts it up for adoption. After carrying and birthing it, she decides to keep it. While I concede that it's not even a majority of the time, it's evidence that people change their mind. 

The bottom line is that this argument has merit, but it's probably not to the degree that you think. It's a manageable problem that can continue to be driven down by proper sex education, free contraceptives, and the morning after pill. All concessions that could given by the right to keep the amount of adoptions in line with the demand, while still giving a woman a say in the matter.

As to the murder part, America has an apathy problem. Killing a baby in the womb at a certain age is murder, and, even though we have a difference of opinion at when that starts, we all start to draw the line somewhere.  Some people say that you can abort a baby until birth, but the VAST majority of Americans don't agree with that. We know by then the baby can hear, feel, think, and respond to their parent. We also can prosecute people for a double murder if the mom is killed. I agree that the standard will end up being somewhat subjective, but I'd always rather err on the side of caution. 

As to your last point, this is almost certainly going to hold true in some instances. However, there are often other recourses available for the child that tends to get overlooked. Where there is a will, there is a way. I have been unloved at times... I have been unwanted at times... but I have never wanted someone to kill me. Don't underestimate the resiliency of the human spirt. Many kids grow up in broken homes to achieve great success. Again, I think this problem is manageable with good programs and more awareness directed at this issue. Will it result in some kids growing up in broken homes and replicating that behavior? Almost certainly. However, it won't be the majority of them. 

The ultimate goal of restricting abortions is for our society to maintain an healthy view of human life. I'm literally giving a slippery slope argument that is rooted in fact. When Roe v. Wade was first decided, abortions were supposed to be safe, legal, and rare. Then abortions were used to allow a woman the freedom to choose her career, then became a form of birth control. Fast forward 30 years and you have politicians talking about giving a 10 day grace period for a woman to decide. It doesn't matter if they are in the minority, because we are seeing the paradigm shifted to one that doesn't value human life. This isn't even counting the talk of euthanization. As our healthcare becomes socialized, you are going to hear more talk about the usefulness of people. Utilitarianism will supersede humanism. Look how much we are already otherizing one another. 

The last point I made is my weakest from a data standpoint, but not a logical one. If you want to dismiss it, go ahead, but I don't think it's unworthy for consideration. Imo, the higher the standard we hold for each other, the better our society will become. If we keep lowering the bar, our societal expectations will also drop. You can see it already.

Almost all of those couples want a healthy, white baby though. That is why the waiting list is so long. Many of the unwanted children who go into the system are minorities, disabled or they are born with issues such as being addicted to drugs or alcohol, thanks to the birth mother's drug addiction. I know several people on the adoption waiting list and the reason it took so long was that they wanted a white baby with no health issues and they just aren't that easy to come by, considering how many people are on the waiting list. Many people are now resorting to overseas adoptions for babies, rather than adopting disabled, black or older children within our own system. 

If someone is willing to abort the child, I would see that as undeniable proof that they are unwanted by the parents. Deciding to put the child up for adoption and deciding to abort are two very different things. Terminating the pregnancy is final. Putting the child up for adoption and knowing that kid is still out there in the world and wondering about what their life is like later on and wishing you would have contact with them are two very different issues. 

I just don't see this as having any merit. You can educate people all you want, but if a kid, drug addict, drunk or just a completely irresponsible person who just drifts through life with no job or responsibilities wants to have sex and doesn't have or use protection, they will. That's just a fact. There are a lot of dregs of humanity out there in the world and education is never going to change them. Some people are just burdens on society and nothing will change that. 

That is a miniscule population of society. 

Everyone is different. I am sincerely happy you have never felt that way. I wish no one ever felt like they didn't want to live. As someone who has lived with depression for a very long time, I can tell you that many times people wish they had been terminated in the womb, rather than go through certain horrors that they are subjected to in life. I agree some kids overcome horrible conditions and grow up to do great things, but for every kid who does this, many, many more do not. Instead, they grow up in a life of mental illness, addiction and violence. That is an undeniable fact. There is good and bad in the world and some people like to pretend that the bad never exists or that it can be overcome. That is not always the case. Not everyone is born with a strong "human spirit."  Some people are so torn down by life that their spirit is essentially broken. I've seen it. 

I totally agree with you that people in general don't value human life anymore. It is a sad and disturbing trend. The level of violence and depravity shown on the news nowadays is stomach churning. Euthanization is an entirely different issue though. That is meant to relieve people of their suffering. I've had to do that to a few of my dogs due to cancer and I certainly didn't do it because I wanted them gone. I did it because I didn't want them to experience the pain anymore. If anything, I did it because I loved them. That is an entirely different issue. 

I agree with your last point to a degree, but at this point our bar has been lowered so much, that people are used to the status quo and almost see that they have a "human right" as an American to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. I sincerely believe we have given people too many freedoms in this country and people have taken advantage of that. They keep pushing the boundaries further and further and instead of the government pushing back, they keep allowing people to lower the bar. Now, we've gotten to a point of no return. If you start really pushing back at this point, people will revolt and all hell will break loose. It's sad we have gotten to this point, but any type of push back now, could end in disaster. We've given people so much and they just keep wanting more and more. Nothing is never enough. That is the price of freedom. If your gonna call yourself "the land of the free," you'd better set up some reasonable limits and stick to them. If not, people will keep pushing those limits further and further away from what they were originally intended to be.

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