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

<p><p>"the ideal would be a solution that would protect the mother's rights and the baby's rights for those who think that the baby should have rights.."</p> <p> </p> <p>This is probably not a new idea, as ideas rarely are, but here is my shot. Have a national binding referendum on abortion. In order to vote in this referendum you have to be 21 (reason will be clear later) or older and you have to sign a registry which lists you as pro-choice or pro-life. Based upon the results of this referendum, if abortion remains legal, then nothing changes. However, if abortion is made illegal, then the follwoing happens: Any unwanted child first can go to those couples wanting to adopt. If the baby is not adopted within 1 year, then the child is placed in the home of one of the registrants who claimed "pro-choice" as their affiliation. This child cannot be refused by the chosen guardian. Mandatory monthly social worker visits will be required for the first 4 years, in order to account for the health/safety of the child.</p> <p>In this system, the child wins, anti-abortion voters win, and we all get to see if the pro-life lobby will put-up or shut-up in order to get this referendum passed. If they truly care about the children, then this should be a no-brainer.</p></p>

<p>"the ideal would be a solution that would protect the mother's rights and the baby's rights for those who think that the baby should have rights.."</p> <p> </p> <p>This is probably not a new idea, as ideas rarely are, but here is my shot. Have a national binding referendum on abortion. In order to vote in this referendum you have to be 21 (reason will be clear later) or older and you have to sign a registry which lists you as pro-choice or pro-life. Based upon the results of this referendum, if abortion remains legal, then nothing changes. However, if abortion is made illegal, then the follwoing happens: Any unwanted child first can go to those couples wanting to adopt. If the baby is not adopted within 1 year, then the child is placed in the home of one of the registrants who claimed "pro-choice" as their affiliation. This child cannot be refused by the chosen guardian. Mandatory monthly social worker visits will be required for the first 4 years, in order to account for the health/safety of the child.</p> <p>In this system, the child wins, anti-abortion voters win, and we all get to see if the pro-choice lobby will put-up or shut-up in order to get this referendum passed. If they truly care about the children, then this should be a no-brainer.</p>

But if abortion remains legal, then there is nothing that can be done for the baby's life and rights (again, for those who believe they have rights...)and we are back to square one... if it becomes illegal I see how it could work...

oops, made mistake in first version...the last "pro-choice" was meant to be "pro-life."

But if abortion remains legal, then there is nothing that can be done for the baby's life and rights (again, for those who believe they have rights...)and we are back to square one... if it becomes illegal I see how it could work...

Rights as you refer are not handed out willy nilly. The fetus essentially has no rights where a human being does. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. That's why they can't sue to prevent from being aborted.

Again, I have to remind everyone for my own sake that I am not pro-abortion. I don't like abortion, it makes me sad. I have never had one, don't expect I ever will, and I haven't and won't ever assist in an elective abortion. But my personal feelings and dislike of the whole thing doesn't trump the rights of the mother who is an actual person and fits the legal description of a human being.

wasa -

That's why I chose my solution. It takes the onus of the "moral" decision away from the mother and gives it to society at large. If society at large wants to dictate how she must deal with a pregnancy, then make society at large accountable by forcing them to raise the child. The mother gets what she wants - no child to raise; society gets what they want - no child dies; and pro-choice people like me get what we want - a barometer of how true the pro-life people are being to themselves. They talk a good game, but as Ben Franklin and Tom Brady most recently said: "It's better done than better said." Let's see how they react when the government shows up at the door with their new unexpected bundle of joy. We'll even give them 9 months notice a baby is coming so it won't be one day to the next.

the ideal would be a solution that would protect the mother's rights and the baby's rights for those who think that the baby should have rights;This is probably not a new idea, as ideas rarely are, but here is my shot. Have a national binding referendum on abortion. In order to vote in this referendum you have to be 21 (reason will be clear later) or older and you have to sign a registry which lists you as pro-choice or pro-life. Based upon the results of this referendum, if abortion remains legal, then nothing changes. However, if abortion is made illegal, then the follwoing happens: Any unwanted child first can go to those couples wanting to adopt. If the baby is not adopted within 1 year, then the child is placed in the home of one of the registrants who claimed pro-life as their affiliation. This child cannot be refused by the chosen guardian. Mandatory monthly social worker visits will be required for the first 4 years, in order to account for the health/safety of the child;In this system, the child wins, anti-abortion voters win, and we all get to see if the pro-life lobby will put-up or shut-up in order to get this referendum passed. If they truly care about the children, then this should be a no-brainer

I LOVE IT! Where do I sign?

Again, I have to remind everyone for my own sake that I am not pro-abortion. I don't like abortion, it makes me sad. I have never had one, don't expect I ever will, and I haven't and won't ever assist in an elective abortion.

Why? Just curious here.

Not exactly. According to a Latin dictionary it means

As always, dictionaries provide several definitions. The main one in the Latin dictionary I used is "offspring". Colloquially it means "little one".

As always, dictionaries provide several definitions. The main one in the Latin dictionary I used is "offspring". Colloquially it means "little one".

Right. Like a carrot.

I wasn't debating "little one" I was referring to:

Originally Posted by gadgetlady

Fetus is a Latin word meaning "unborn child" or "little one".

I LOVE IT! Where do I sign?

There are tons of children already in need of homes. Go sign up.

"IMO women that don't want things (because they apparently consider babies just things or they wouldn't kill them) growing in their bellies should probably keep their legs closed."

Wow...and I guess that people that don't want to be fat should keep their mouths closed. If they are fat, it is their choice and problem, and anyone who uses medical science to get "un-fat" is not being moral. Why should science and insurance pay for a mistake that was made by a bad entirely personal choice? Hell, fat people didn't even have someone else asking/begging/sometimes forcing them to make the bad choice.

Doctors make mistakes and tubes have not been tied properly and a pregnancy happened.

For your information, I was self pay.. insurance did not pay for me. And if getting my band to lose 40 lbs of overweight is inmoral to you.. then you have issues. I did not kill a child because I over ate..

According to your logic you could have sent a ton of extra food to a starving child. There are many throughout the world. Think of how many you could have saved vs. eating it yourself?

Women who have abortions don't kill children either, they abort an embryo/fetus.

Well, the law does not agree that a fetus is a human being, that's why they have no rights.

If the law changed, would you suddenly agree that a "fetus" is a human being?

Science does not support that a fetus is a human being, that's why it is called a fetus vs. a human being.

A fetus is a name for one phase of human development, just like toddler and adolescent and elderly. It's all a spectrum of development. A fetus doesn't "turn into" a human being. A fetus IS a human being at an early stage of development.

For me personally, when there are connections between the brain and everything else, when the fetus begins to have a personality, can feel something... anything physically, then it becomes a human being. That is the difference between a human being and human life.

For me personally, a black person is 3/5 of a human being. Therefore I can own a slave.

Do you see the fallacy in this argument?

The biggest problem I have with pro-lifers is that it is their religion that teaches them that it is a human being. Not science, not fact, but religion.

Religious people are involved in both sides of the abortion debate. That does not make it a religious argument, any more than the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a reverend made civil rights a religious issue.

My position on the abortion debate is informed by the scientific fact that the thing growing in the mother's womb is a human being with human DNA and human body parts.

Are you serious?? Think of how many children we might have saved would be more appropirate, don't you think??

I'm out of here, like I said before we each have our opinions, and that is okay. If women that kill their own children don't want to call it that, that is fine with me.. Call it what you want. I will not post anymore. Say what you want. I don't believe in killing anyone not even a tiny defenseless baby.

Are you saying that by sending all the extra food that you ate too much of to a starving child would not save their lives and prevent them from dying of starvation? I'm talking about existing children that already ARE human beings that already FEEL the pain of a slow death from starvation. So it's okay to allow someone else to starve to death while we eat enough calories for 3 or more people but an embryo deserves more of a shot at life than dying tiny defenseless children?

Isn't it true that we could all be doing a lot more for existing people if we wanted to but for many reasons we simply don't?

So what is the difference between us eating like a heifer and not giving all those gazillions of extra calories to those who need it and letting them die instead, vs. a mother killing her zygote? How are we any better? No, maybe you didn't kill anything, but you didn't do your part to save anyone either. Not when eating all that extra food that someone else actually needed for survival.

It's EASY to sit back and point fingers at all the supposed wrongs of another. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to face facts and think about our own responsibilities in this world.

I don't believe it is moral to kill a tiny defenseless baby either. That doesn't mean a zygote is the same thing.