If we’re JUST having an abortion debate that changes the argument to me. I can have an abortion debate/discussion, I just don’t understand when some bring adoption into that discussion. We often say that first you make the decision to continue or terminate a pregnancy. THEN you make a decision to parent or adopt. It is not a decision of abortion vs. adoption – as in “just so long as I don’t have to raise a baby!” That’s not the thought process that I (nor any of my friends that have placed children) have gone through.

One last thing about your plan – if I thought that a plan could be put in place that would teach women (and hopefully the men in their lives!) how to parent, that their financial situation was a temporary one in which adoption is a very permanent solution, that there were resources available to them that could help – I would be all for it. Unfortunately, many homes turned into houses for baby incubators where the staff couldn’t wait to hand off the child to a “deserving” couple once the baby was born. In theory though, with some tweaking, and advising (haha) I think a similar plan could be quite effective.

Again, thanks for the response!

ThanksgivingMom: This is the author here, a card-carrying male. (Have you seen our cards? they’re quite nice!) You make good points, and I submit that my realm of understanding is shaded by the fact that I’m not a woman. My wife read my post and your comments, and I hope she’ll come back by and type them in. Suffice it to say that if anything, I have understated, for the sake of peaceableness, the selfishness of abortion as means to personal freedom/comfort/escape/etc. She points out that mothers putting their babies up for adoption generally see their medical bills—and many other bills—paid for by the adoptive parents, and so there’s not a need for my plan. (Every president needs advisers, I guess.) But the question remains: Why abortion? Why is it morally defensible for a pregnant woman to decide to terminate a pregnancy, yet I’m culpable for involuntary manslaughter if I’m driving while talking on my cell phone, I crash into a pregnant woman and terminate that pregnancy? The thing inside the woman is the same in both instances, is it not? If we’re going to play the game, I say, we ought to play it honestly. There are legal justifications for killing: self-defense, for one; defense of another; the unplugging of a respirator by a power of attorney. Yet in all these cases, no one denies what is actually going on: Someone is taking the life of another. In the case of abortion, however, those on the pro-life side are castigated for even referring to the growing, living thing as a “baby” instead of a “fetus”. I can respect, intellectually, the concept that “killing can be justified, and I argue that in this case it is just”—even if I don’t agree with it. What I can’t respect is the smokescreen of “choice” and the sheer ignoring of scientifically provable facts (the thing breathes, the thing eats, the thing THINKS). (*I can and do respect the individuals who hold these fanciful ideas, but not the ideas themselves.)

I think your information about pregnancy and unplanned pregnancies could use some help as well. Not all pregnancies get difficult in the third trimester. Some occur much earlier. Not all abortions are had by “single” women – so what would married women wanting an abortion get out of your new plan?

As for “either way, the woman with the unwanted pregnancy comes out ahead” – I think you would have to speak to women that have placed children for adoption before you make that statement. Often “homes” such as this (which do exist though not funded on a state or federal level) do not end up as places that are unbiased but rather as places where women are encouraged to place their child for adoption – creating a loss for the child, for the birthmother, and the birthfamily. Adoption is NOT an alternative to abortion. They are two seperate decisions and I’m not sure that your solution would solve anything. Rather I think it may only cause a new problem with regards to higher uneccesary adoption rates.

Sadly this is not true. The Romans use to have ‘illegal’ beheadings and the people did not revolt. Roman kings would behead their guest at dinner because they were displeased by something the guest said. During the reign of King Henry and King George the same was done. Now during the reign of America’s King George W the same is being done. We have an illegal war and soldiers are being murdered everyday but Americans are not rioting on the streets. Humans Beings are pretty complacent beings.