You all know how I would vote. So lets see how many like me are out there.

I won't lie to be nice, especially when people are calling me all sorts of names. It's just not who I am.

Where were you called names? Seriously, I must have missed that post.

FuelMan: We must be about the same age. I totally understand your viewpoint and it is very refreshing to hear someone speak to the problems of society that contribute to making abortion sometimes the only choice for some women.

If we made some really serious changes with regard to ensuring that pregnant women and the unwanted children that they are pregnant with, are well taken care of and respected, it would go a long way to solve many of the problems of unwanted pregnancies that we've been discussing here.

Some of my earlier posts in this arugment were a reaction to the insistence by the anti-abortion people that these troubled women simply give their children up for adoption. I stopped short of wondering if they had some financial stake in more adoptions. I felt that was just too awful a concept. But I do know that there are people who are in that business, as distasteful as it may be.

My arguments had to do with the mother who has nurtured her baby through all the stages its' development, from fertilized egg through the pregnancy and to finally, hopefully, delivering a wonderful living breathing human being. Women are generally nurturing creatures and to transition through all of the stages of conception through delivery and experience the unconditional love that they feel for their baby, it is unconcsionable to ask a woman to then lovingly surrender that child to someone else. It isn't selfish for a mother to want to keep her child - it is nature's way and it is the preferable way, just as I think you were saying.

Your suggestions are far superior and more practical - to put women in the position of being able to love and nurture their babies and raise them in a healthy environment. What a huge contrast to the ideas of adoption or abortion.

As for the war, I'm afraid most of the people who've posted that they are completely, vehemently opposed to abortion, are the same people who support our president and the war he has committed us to. It is as much a mystery to me as all of the intelligent and thoughtful things that laurend, mark, niecyrenee and a few others have pointed out as weaknesses in many of the anti-abortion posts in this thread.

Thanks very much for your input FireMan, I believe you made some very relevant points!

Look I am all for helping A young lady that is confused and don't know what to do. But I know of 3 people that have had abortions (that I know of ,they do not know that I know they have had an abortion by the way.)but all three of them have abused this abotion system. one had a abortion and she had a 4yr old already and now she has another kid. she could have afforded to have a kid but she was not married at the time and she already had the 4 yr old I know this was scary for her but she has depression now and it is because abortion. The other 2 people 1 has had 2 abortions and the other has had 4 before she was 22 yr old. she know has 3 kids. My point is these women were haveing sex and did not take responsabilty for thier actions so they kept choosing to make more bad desissions. By faulting their unborn child. Some regret it, some I don't know if they do. But I'm all for helping someone who needs help. But to just say I am not willing to make a choice for someone that I am not willing to help out, is a copout. First who besides the misplaced youth that got herself in this situation is going to make a good desision for the other youth (the unborn child). Lets make the desision to help them both and not cop out and take the easy road!

I missed the name-calling too. Except in Daffodil's posts.

Where were you called names? Seriously, I must have missed that post.

Exactly. I don't see how saying "I respect you and your point of view" is "calling someone names."

Gadget will go to the absolute bitter end, changing the subject and ignoring the issue, and do anything she can possibly do in order to avoid admitting the fact that abortion is an issue with two sides, and that people in the pro-choice side of things have some reasonable arguments that are worthy of respect. Her argument will always boil down to the following: "Anyone who does not accept my view on abortion is an evil, blood-soaked baby killer."

Like I say, in the final analysis I welcome that point of view. It pushes people away from the pro-life side, which ultimately protects women. So, really, her views are very welcome here.

Where were you called names? Seriously, I must have missed that post.

I'm not going to go back through all of the posts, but it wouldn't take too long to find them. I wasn't directly "called names", but I was accused of wanting women to die from illegal abortions, of spreading disinformation and tripe, etc. I would be surprised if you wouldn't categorize some of those posts and others as hostile.

396- why don't you carry those babies for your friends for nine months, go through delivery, and raise them and handle all the attendant problems for the next 20 years of your life? If you think that it only has to do with them being "inconvenienced" you just have no clue.

By the way, that's a real scientific study you did on the reasons why women get abortions. You haven't even spoken with the women you mentioned, so how in the world can you believe you fully understand their situations, much less the majority of other women's situations?

laurend, I don't know about you, but after reading one of the above posts, I rest my case.

I have to agree with you.

Her argument will always boil down to the following: "Anyone who does not accept my view on abortion is an evil, blood-soaked baby killer."

Yeah, like that. And I think there was something in there about Satan, too. None of which I ever said. I have never, ever called someone an "evil, blood-soaked baby killer." It isn't me who's ramping up the rhetoric.

gadget you've been guilty of dishing out hostility when you've felt someone was being hostile toward your posts. Most of us have. That doesn't constitute name-calling.

I beg your pardon. If Mark called YOU a name in that post you quoted, I certainly apologize. But I didn't read it that way.

Fine. I'll stop defending myself now. But that does NOT mean I'll stop defending the babies. If you don't like it you don't have to read it.

I'm not going to go back through all of the posts, but it wouldn't take too long to find them. I wasn't directly "called names", but I was accused of wanting women to die from illegal abortions, of spreading disinformation and tripe, etc. I would be surprised if you wouldn't categorize some of those posts and others as hostile.

And you've called (or as good as called) us murderers, baby killers, and basically equated us to Nazis and slave-owners (since, of course THEY didn't see their victims as human either, you said). So what's the worst offense here? Being accused of spreading tripe or being accused of murder?

Yeah, like that. And I think there was something in there about Satan, too. None of which I ever said. I have never, ever called someone an "evil, blood-soaked baby killer." It isn't me who's ramping up the rhetoric.

You sure didn't tell Daffodil to back down when she called us that. To me, that says that you agree with her.

Yeah, like that. And I think there was something in there about Satan, too. None of which I ever said. I have never, ever called someone an "evil, blood-soaked baby killer." It isn't me who's ramping up the rhetoric.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the discussion has gotten heated in the past. How about if we put that behind us and look forward. At this moment I say to you that I respect you and I believe that you have some arguments and points of view that deserve respect. I think you are a reasonable, thoughtful, compassionate person. I disagree with your arguments, but I respect them.

Are you willing to say the same?

Sorry. Not going to debate about words used anymore. Happy to discuss the REAL issue at hand, that of whether it should be acceptable to stop a beating heart or not.