Helpful? Are you fucking kidding me

A touchy topic.....no comment.

I absolutely and positively don't endorse abortion in any way, shape, or form. I do believe, however, that it's the choice of the individual. I only hope and pray that it's the right choice (life). The reason I say this is because we will all stand before a judge one day, and He is the one that will pass judgment, not me.

Since 1973, over 30 million pregnancies have been safely and legally terminated in this country.  That means there's 30 million less unwanted people in this country.  Seeing that we barely have the means to provide for the 300+ million Americans currently here, with a large percentage not contributing anything useful, but rather, merely taking up space and consuming, to accommodate an additional 30 million would grossly overburden a system that can't even do its job under present conditions.  Can you imagine how much worse the social problems in this country would be if we had an additional 30 million unwanteds roaming the streets?  Let's be practical and pragmatic about this, folks, and leave the absurd notions of your gutter religion at the door.

I'm not for or against it! I think it should be a personal choice.

Killing innocent people is always harmful to society. You can do whatever you want to your body, but when  it comes to abortion there are two bodies involved. To convince me that abortion is OK, you only have to do one thing. Convince me that an unborn child is not a human being.

I don't think it's the right to have an abortion that has hurt society as much as the public demand for it. The real crux of the problem is the eroding attitude toward the value of human life. Abortion for convenience is really a symptom - the disease is indifference.

This is a tuffy because once again it comes down to education. Prevention is really the key but should there be a need for abortion then lets keep the steril environment. Most places educate on the options and have waiting periods before actually performing abortions. Believe me, I wish the need wasnt there.

Society is hurt by the degradation of human life. I understand that not everyone believes that life begins at conception. When did any penal system in the US determine and codify the origin of "life" (and therefore, the civil rights of the "person"), whereby the taking of that life which possesses those rights, can legitimately be called murder? Roe ignores this issue. It does not specifically identify at which point the civil rights, those identified in the Preamble (life, liberty and the pursuit of happines) inure to the fetus. If you believe that life begins at the moment of birth, that's fine. You're somewhat alone in that belief as late-term abortions are pretty generally considered to be murder. But, at which point in the process of gestation do we confer the status of "alive" ? You can be "for" a woman's right to choose but how do you ignore the fetus' (or baby's) right to live? When does that begin? Societies which allow their own citizens to be killed are usually called barbaric, including the US. When do the basic human right, which our government was FORMED TO PROTECT, confer upon the fetus? It's really a simple question. Take a stand.

I can not see how a Womans right to choose for herself can "hurt society".It is HER and the Fathers business.I can see how making abortion illegal will hurt society,though.Women will then be forced back to "coathangers in alleys",or into raising unwanted kids who will grow up maladjusted.Give the baby up for Adoption,you say? The orphanages are chock full of kids already,and that's no way to grow up.Face it-the planet is overpopulated,and we are fools if we insist on contributing to that problem with unwanted kids and more irresponsible and uncaring parents.

Hate the freedom and choices of others? You'd make a great communist. . .

This is extremely hurtful to society because once the sperm reaches the egg, that's it, life is created. Then it grows rapidly and everyday, it becomes more and more formed. It is so hurtful because killing something which has done no wrong is murder, even if it is only 4 weeks old or so ever. I wander what actually makes people think it is not murder to kill something which is in the womb, rather then killing a fully born baby? Well if it is on the basis that it isn't fully formed, then we may as well say that a baby is less valuable then an adult because they are less formed then an adult. Just because something is less formed (a human), it doesn't mean it is inferior. The only thing I can say is maybe losers eg drug dealers and people who are dumb because of deliberate criminal acts like drug and alcoholism and violent people should be prevented from having children ie get 'desexed.' But if they do happen to have a child, it should in no way die or get harmed in anyway. Because say if a child was born into a looser family. Simply killing the baby is not the solution. In fact, that baby could be the very one who may be the next Nobel prize winner. Children don't have to be like their parents. In fact, one of the problems with abortion is you don't know who you are killing. You could be killing the next Einstein or the next Moses. Well it was funny, the first abortions were actually done in Egypt around 4000 years ago by Pharaoh. He ordered that all baby boys should be killed because he wanted to stop the population of Israel growing because they were a threat to his power. If people had of adhered to those rules, especially 2 particular Jewish nurses and just killed the baby, then, one of the greatest leaders - Moses - would of never lead Israel out of the land of slavery. Well killing a baby outside of the womb is not much different from killing it inside the womb. So abortion is doing the same thing as what Pharaoh did in a way. Well if people made better choices and this pre-marital sex was illegal etc, maybe it might slow the problem of 'unwanted' pregnancies in the first place. We are having this problem in the first place because people have no control over their sex drives, then they don't know what to do with the consequences. Well I love human life far too much to ether consider abortion as being a good thing.

I wish all the furor about children's rights would spread out to those alreday here and suffering at the hands of adults. So many people whose job it is to look for their rights drop the ball, as seen by the case in New York of the little girl molested, beaten then killed by her step father over a period of time. So many fight for the right of the unborn but what happens to these kids once they are here, born to mothers who don't even want them? How many are neglected, murdered, or adopted? So many adoptable children are stuck in foster homes where they are not treated so good, where the adults are doing it for the money. As for the sanctity of life, over our history as a species, we have proven over and over that human life is not worth a heck of a lot. Things are certainly better than they were even a hundred years ago when children's lives were 100 times worse if they weren't born into a comfortable life. But sometimes, it just isnt worth getting born, just to face a life of misery with people who dont want you, or a society who decides you have no value.

Freakonomics, exactly. While I don't think that the startling revelations Levitt has uncovered should influence policy (i.e., state encouragement of abortion for crime-control reasons), it should reshape the way we think about the Roe v. Wade debate. I admired Levitt's attempt to quantify the benefits of abortion vs. crime as well, though who can say that a fetus is worth .001 of a baby, etc.? Still, I think abortion at its current rate is beneficial to society because most of the children that would have been born would have been poor, lower-class, undereducated... in other words, practically a recipe for a future criminal. The odds of one of the aborted children clawing his/her way up and becoming a useful member of society are also low, though this must be said with reservation, since out of approx. 1.5 million aborted fetuses per year, the law of averages says that a substantial number of them would have overachieved, not become criminals, and perhaps done something great. That's the only thing keeping me from awarding this a 5.

Can't hurt more than theft rights, arsony rights, rape rights or any other oxymoron you can come up with.

Abortion is hurtful to society. The loss of innocent life is part of a lack of human values. It is a sign of some of our society's problems, that instead of dealing with a difficult situation, many of us would rather just get rid of it.

The problem with abortion rights is that they are just that, a "right" rather than a "requirement". If (and I mean "IF") we are going to have an intrusive, proactive, interventionist form of government, as we do now, I at least want it to do things that will positively effect the public good. Undeniably, from a social cost and financial perspective, mandatory abortions for persons with felony convictions, drug related convictions during the past 5 years, an inability to demonstrate present ability to finance the birth and maintenenance of a child until the age of 2, or who are incapable of reading and writing English at a 9th grade level, should have their pregnancies terminated. It would be the best money the government could ever spend. 20 years down the road, half the major problems we discuss in modern American life would be not so distant memories.