Abortion

As it stands, Women have all the power/legal rights when it comes to abortion, and men have none. If a woman decides to keep a baby the man cannot legally object, nevertheless he will be forced to pay child support. Conversely if a woman decides to have the pregnancy terminated, the man can do nothing more than impotently voice his objection; ultimately the decision rests with the woman.

So as far as bringing a child into this world goes, one of the most important decisions in life, women have complete power and control over this crucial decision. Should it be that just because women have wombs they are entitled to control anf all rights to new life?

It is unfair to label a person who oposes abortion a "religious fanatic" or an "extremist". It is also way off base to compare abortion to issues like gambling.

Most people who are oposed to abortion hold the belief that life begins at conception, and to them an abortion is no different than murdering the child after birth. How can they ever be expected to even consider supporting abortion? To them, this is like making it OK to murder your child because you can no longer afford child support. Even the constitution guarantees the right to life.

So (IMHO) the fundamental issue is not about choice or freedom. It all comes down to the question of when you believe life begins.

I seriously doubt that there are many abortion supporters who believe life begins at conception.

Thats why this is such a hot topic ... one side sees taking away abortion as infringing on their right to choose, while the other side sees legal abortion as legal murder. Youll never find much "common ground" here!

A much better question to discuss would be "When does life begin?"

The comparison to gambling was not 'way off base', it was stressing the localised opinions on these issues. I'll bet that people in somewhere like Texas are more pro-life, and other places are generally more pro-choice. It is not unreasonable to see this is a local issue, although if you don't happen to see it as a local issue that's fine. It's not 'way off base' though.

The question of when life begins is not necessarily, in my opinion, the central issue. A foetus has a great deal of potential, the potential to become a fully-grown human and life a full life. But then, so does every egg in a woman's ovaries. Nobody (or at least not many) considers contraception roughly equivalent to murder.

I don't think it's a black and white issue of whether the embryo is alive or not. Life is precious, but how do you guess the value of the potential child's life, what there is of it at least, in comparison to the very much more developed life of the mother and the issues that will arise if she is denied the choice? Perhaps you see the embryo's life as just as important as any other human's life. Perhaps you don't. Either way, you have to recognise that not everyone shares the same opinion on this and the question of whether the embryo is alive or not is not the fundamental question to everyone.