here are no easy answers for incredibly difficult questions.
Shawn, I really feel for you being subjected to such abuse by your Mum, no matter what her personal problems are.
My personal opinion is that it is the person carrying the foetus to decide on the outcome. Yes I think there is a prerogative to tell the male, if the male is in a relationship with the pregnant person, but I'm not sure at all at what point the father has a choice in the decision. I'm not being deliberately wimpy about that. If the relationship is long term and loving then that would seemt to be a situation where the choice has to be decided mutually. If the relationship is casual well? If it is rape, incest etc then them male should be castrated and forced to eat his genitals. The decision on the pregnancy is purely up to the victim and either decision is equally correct.
The comment from Arch in regards to the abortion clinic and the Catholic girls deciding to have one sin rather than many, is part of the awful problem.
Why do religions ban contraception? In my view it can only be for stupid or evil reasons; and I cannot really get myself to believe that the heads of those churches are consciously evil. No matter my utter disregard for them.
The argument that contraception is pre-abortion appears facetious and based on dogma rather than logic. Yet I don't recall any of the religious proponents of this belief providing biblical links. I cannot comment on Islam etc as I have not read any of their religious books.
Rape has been used as a weapon of war forever. Recent conflicts in places such as the ex-Yugoslavia typified this, rape was used as a weapon forcing woman from different ethnic groups to bear children sired by rapists from another. This would lead to them being outcasts and for their societies to crumble.
It is by no means new of course, the English practiced it in a particular foul way when trying to conquer Scotland and Northern Island in the 1700's onwards.
So if we acknowledge that rape is forcing woman to carry a child that will not only ruin her social life (in the correct meaning of that word) but as a means of war and destruction of society then I feel we have to regard pregnancy in a different light.
Who owns the child? The sire or the mother?
OK we can say that my examples are relatively simple. A woman is horribly abused and her forced pregnancy should be allowed to be terminated if she wishes, except it is against her societies religious belief. She is damned either way.
Naturally it is no fault of the foetus and we all need to acknowledge, support and love the child born from such horror and of course the mother. But does her society?
Mine will; but I seem to stand alone on top of a hill a lot of the time.
Sadly answers to complex questions are very difficult to deal with in a logical manner by many people. I'll pick on the USA, where it seems the right answer is from the group who shout the loudest.
