It's not the Christian Republic of America, so why is it those who are religious can hold the bodies of secular women and of other religions hostage?

@GeistInTheMachine I agree that prevention is the best thing to do, but it's definitely worth noting that the vast, vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester, before rapid neural development begins. In other words, the fetus is most likely not sentient at the time, let alone capable of suffering. I'm all for having some kind of mandatory warning for women getting an abortion in the second trimester that their fetus is likely to feel pain, if for no other reason so they don't have to find out afterwards.

@BlueVeins IF it is the case that it is PROVEN without a doubt that in the first trimester the fetus is not sentient, then that is one thing and can ostensibly not be immoral to abort.

But a mere warning is not good enough once the fetus is alive and capable a suffering.

Just because some dude could't keep it in his pants and some woman couldn't be arsed to be on one form of birth control or more (with all the damn options women have), doesn't mean it is moral to kill a child.

I know accidents happen. (Which is why I am for pumping money and research into more and better options for BC for all.)

Condoms break. I've been there. And each time it happened with my ex I bought her Plan B even though I never finished because the IOTA of a chance she could get pregnant was more than enough to compel me to ENSURE that did NOT happen, for many, many reasons.

You can legalize murder, but it doesn't make it moral. Slavery was legal once.

@GeistInTheMachine Well nothing regarding sentience can be proven "without a doubt". I can't prove that my water bottle isn't sentient beyond a doubt because we don't even know how sentience works. The best we can do is infer based on behavior and anatomy, and to that end, first trimester fetuses are a fairly clear-cut case. They have far, far fewer neurons in their brains than a full-term baby does. They can't make deliberate movements, and only twitch slightly. In fact, real movement only starts to occur at the [i]end[/i] of the second trimester. This is interesting because it coincides with the start of coordinated brain activity.

92.7% of abortions are performed in the first trimester. The only neurologically active thing fetuses can do at this point is respond to touch, which suggests that they're every bit as sentient as your average venus flytrap.

@GeistInTheMachine that's a bit of a non sequitur though. Not everyone who has an abortion do it because they can't keep it in their pants. There are cases of rape, incest and foetuses who, if they would be carried to term, would be in severe suffering from genetic defects.

@basilfawlty89 Not surprised they are at the point of passing moral judgement with blanket statements. There argument up to this point has been emotional manipulation to justify bad faith arguments.

@GeistInTheMachine just adding... killing unless there's a very good reason is arbitrary, who decides.. does not killing life that feels pain include fish and animals...
AND as others have said, preventing unwanted pregnancy isn't nearly as easy as some people think

@GeistInTheMachine And if prevention doesn’t work, force the woman to give birth at gunpoint to teach her to not be such a slut, right?

How about mandatory vasectomies for all men, which they can reverse if they want kids? You people want to control the wrong gender.