*essentially, all our acts in each and every moment of our lives requires emotion as a component*

Yup. The question then becomes, as Goleman put it so well in his
"Emotional Intelligence", are you emotionally engulfed or emotionally
aware? Being a slave to your emotions is hardly smart thinking.

I suppose that there are two options:

A. Women are recognised as having the right to make choices over their own bodies. If they choose to terminate a pregnancy, then that is their right. Men don't have to be involved, or identified.

or

B. Abortion should be illegal and rigorously policed, and for women who express an unwillingness to proceed with their pregnancies, once the woman has identified the father of her soon-to-be-born child, he is to be apprehended and vasectomied. After all, he has done his bit for procreation, so that's the Church satisfied.

So: either a sensible and humanistic solution, or a medieval and barbaric solution. Perhaps it's all a bit academic these days, but we do need to resolve this issue.

If course, a third option is that women are provided with on-going contraception, which they can terminate as and when they choose. But we're all human, and it may not always work out that way, especially for younger women, first-timers. As the wonderful Bertram Wainer pointed out, 'it's not nice' that abortions have to occur, but we all make mistakes, and some of us pay more than others, and for nine months and more longer, so why not even up the playing field ? If no abortion, then vasectomy ?

Either that, or men forever hold their counsel.

Joe

Loudmouth thinks that men who create unwanted pregnancies should be vasectomised against their will. Why? Perhaps that unborn child is in fact wanted by the father. The father has no say in the matter. Should the mother also be sterilized?
Loudmouth seems to think that men should be excluded from this debate. But each one of those babies being aborted have a father and over half of them are boys. Men have a huge interest in the protection of their potential off spring and in generally having a voice in deciding the moral path that society should take on these questions. Women perhaps have a larger stake given they actually have to carry the baby, but their stake is not exclusive.
I don't necessarily believe that the criminal law is answer but that doesn't mean we should just say that "abortion is fine and every woman has a right to decide what she does with her own body." There are others that have a stake in this including the unborn and its potential father and everyone else who doesn't wish to live in a society where we routinely kill the most vulnerable for the sake of convenience. As a society we should be doing everything we can to reduce the abortion rate, including ensuring everyone has access to contraception and the knowledge of when and how to use it. We should be celebrating the conception and birth of every baby, regardless of how inconvenient its arrival may be to the parents

Sam said! You have drawn the longest bow possible. You assume every one involved in an abortion is a sociopath and tending to psychopath, actually a post so far to the extreme that it is probably worthless debating your position.

Rhys said" We should be celebrating the conception and birth of every baby, regardless of how inconvenient its arrival may be to the parents" Well as the father of two girls and the husband of a lady, if any of the three females in my life were raped and fell pregnant as a result, I certainly would not be celebrating the event and would regard this deplorable act as more than an inconvenience. This comment is right up there with those made by Indiana Senate candidate Mourdock where he called pregnancies resulting from rape as a gift from God.

When will men realise that this is a woman's health issue.

Oh and Sam, not every female who has a termination crumbles into a crying mess, they make a decision and are comfortable with it. I know a couple of ladies who have made this decision and contrary to what you may believe they don't live their lives in silent shame & regret and they are not sociopaths or psychopaths, they are great mothers and live "normal" suburban successful lives.

*We should be celebrating the conception and birth of every baby, regardless of how inconvenient its arrival may be to the parents*

Go and tell that to the people living on the Manilla rubbish tip,
who after 8 kids plead to have their tubes tied and are denied
that option by the Catholic Church.

Given that its not you going hungry, it is so easy to pontificate
from the comfort of your cushy lifestyle.

In their lifetime, most women have around 400 chances to have a baby
and reality prevails, you can't keep them all. Only a woman can
decide that matter and as the load falls on her shoulders, it
should also be her right to make that decision. Interfering busybodys
are free to rush off to the third world and save some of the starving
babies, if they really want to put their money where their mouth is.

Interesting isn't it. "all concern for the fetus, no care for the child"

i wonder how many of these "every conception is sacred" deeply concerned individuals actually go and do charity work for the poor children in third world countries. I do, I love the pickaninny children i've helped, however I'm sensible enough to realise abortion is a woman's health choice. According to some that makes me a borderline psychopath.

Oh BTW pickaninny is not an offensive term as the adults themselves refer to the children as such, it's only offensive to, "do good do nothing" white people sitting in the comfort of their heated homes enjoying their full bellies.