"I dont believe that a soul enters a child untill the 8th month or right before birth."
And I bet you were born two months premature, NYU.
You know what, it's always the same crap when this subject comes up. People like those in this thread who mention "carelessness" and suggest that so-called careless people should be forced to have babies they don't want or can't resonably provide with a life as punishment for having sex. They have a totally different world view than I do.
Such arguments don't at all begin to take into account the very complex intersections of a whole lot of circumstances that lead to unwanted pregnancy: desire, biological urges, race, class, nationality, power and its imbalances, force, and on and on.
Not to mention the significant numbers of staunchly anti-abortion people I have encountered and read about who a) will do whatever they can to stop a woman from getting access to her legal right to an abortion and b) are in favor of the death penalty. A nurse friend of mine put it best when she said, "The right to life begins at conception and ends at birth." You know, like a certain president who sucks up to the anti-abortion lobby and not only signs the order for execution of a retarded man, but laughs about it? Like that.
Personally, I work (used to be on the clinic defense team of my local Planned Parenthood) and contribute cash to insure a woman's right to choose to do what she wants to do with her body. That's the primary thing I think about when I step into a voting booth and pull a lever. I think of all my women friends and relatives and I think of how this candidate will insure that these women have the options that are their right.
I simply couldn't ignore that and vote for somebody who is against freedom of choice and think, "well, they shouldn't legislate such things anyway." I can't just dismiss it. Because I'm a gay man and I can clearly see the links between the control of women's bodies and the desire for control of mine. (Ya know, sodomy laws were almost never used to prosecute non-vaginal sex loving heterosexuals.)
I'm glad people know for absolute certainty that they "could never have an abortion" themselves. I hope they never face a situation that would require them to consider one.
As for men having any say at all in the matter other than supporting women's freedom to choose, I think we really don't. There has never been a woman in charge of Operation Rescue, ever. The current guy, who replaced Randall Terry, is just another single-issue zealot determined to control what "the fairer sex" can do with their bodies, his recent profile in Rolling Stone was infuriating.
I have a very pro-choice priest friend who got caught in a discussion about the presidential elections with a seminarian. Although the seminarian is committed to social justice and works for the poor, he absolutely feels he cannot vote for Kerry because Kerry said he believes life begins at conception and he still has the audacity to be pro-choice. My priest friend said to the seminarian, "Oh face it, if men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
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