Let me state a few facts about my experiences.
My wife lost her third pregnancy at four months by natural abortion. So I am not unfamiliar with the emotions she experienced with the loss of our child.

As I've previously stated I have given counsell to 4 abused wives: Three remain married and one I suggested she seperate from her husband; there were no children involved from this man. The latest pair I counselled on wife bashing two years ago, had me babysit their son last weekend so they could celebrate her birthday. They have their arguments but he knows if he dare lay a hand on her it is into the lock up. He is a business man and such an event would damage his reputation.

__________________________

What is truth?
When fertile male sperm attaches itself to a healthy female egg in a healthy environment conception takes place.

To pretend this will not take place in the womb as a healthy woman is deception. There are those that prefer to believe a lie. However when they discover it has, they panic with fear and believe such an event is unjust and unfair. So the only known way is to destroy the evidence. They are living in denial.

Conception is not a fantacy it is a fact of life. People 6,000 years ago recognised this so this is why marriage was established to make two persons responsible for children born to that woman. Free love was outlawed as adultery or fornication as men could easily walk away from their family responsibility.

It would seem that this generation feels marriage is a hinderance and woman have children to any man without responsibility. That sex alone is the criteron of the pinacle of a relationship. So one night stands are acceptable. This might be a fact- but it does not represent the absolute of a truth of best social practise.

Philo, you are correct, at conception another organism is created.
So what? They can be created easily, in virtually unlimited amounts of abundance, far more then can ever survive. The problem is not in creating them, but providing the resources to raise them for the next 20 years. Thats the hard part.

Thats exactly why pairbonding (marriage to you) evolved in a number of species. About 90% of birds and 3% of mammals. The prairie vole for instance, is a loyal little fellow, who fusses over his female and has eyes only for her, ignoring other cute female prairie voles, for very good reasons. Fact is that in species where large amounts of resources are required to raise the offspring, pairbonding evolved as a way for that to happen. In humans its much the same, although it goes back much further then 6000 years.

Anthropologists have examined this in detail. Helen Fisher even wrote a book about it all for us non anthropologists, to understand it, called "The Anatomy of Love".

Her view is that women in hunter gatherer societies had a much higher profile, their downfall came with the advent of the plow.
Plows needed alot more strength to operate, at that point women became mere chattels for baby making, as is shown back to the days of Mesopotania.

What has changed now is that after all this time, women now don't need men anymore to bring home the resources to raise the offspring.
They can make a quid on their own and raise offspring as well if required. So they need be chattels no longer, but can choose partnerships if they wish.

But that evolutionary drive to pairponding is still there, so it still happens and will go on happening. Its just not an impertive
anymore, when it comes to raising a family, as it used to be.

Get used to it, we are just another species of nature, in the scheme of things.

The New Christian testaments are quoting "Marriage" as an extension of your sexuality.

Basically if you like having sex, and you like having sex with one particular person, then you get married.

So I guess when you stop liking sex with that one paticular person, you get a divorce.

Well said Rex!

Philo, I appreciate you sharing a troubling personal anecdote; it seems to be in the spirit of empathy that we all find abortion a troubling topic (for various reasons).

I commend your work helping troubled marriages- and hope these situations turned out well (see, we can all have good intentions even with vastly different world-views. I hope the referenced business man also dares not lay a hand on his wife because he loves her)

In argument, one should give benefit of the doubt to one's opponent about underlying assumptions behind a point.

You have shown enough rational debate that I'm sure you don't literally believe (sane) people do not believe in conception (at least from us aware of a western, scientific paradigm, who therefore understand conception as a physiological process).

My best interpretation of your argument is therefore either that there are those who do not believe in conception as a significant event for the moral treatment of an organism, or a significant event for the social recognition of an entity (hence your reference to people 6000 years ago recognising conception, though they would not know the microscopic processes of conception and early pregnancy).

I apologise if this was not your point; please let us know what was. If this was your point, I would ask why do you consider conception an important event for moral status, or why is it important for social status, and what does that mean for abortion?

Historically, many different child rearing institutions have flourished in different cultures. The only (roughly) universal family unit identified by anthropologists is the mother-child unit, as family systems are too diverse to make any other rule about "traditional" families. Monogamy and polygamy are both well represented in terms of marriage systems.

I interpret your last paragraph as generalised social commentary (with a lament about morality) rather than debatable on-topic argument, and we should all have scope to espouse our beliefs with general discussion. If you wish to flesh out these points into debatable (on topic) arguments, I'm sure there are posters who will discuss their merits/flaws.

Well written posts wibble and Rex.

Philo, your remarks "It would seem that this generation feels marriage is a hinderance and woman have children to any man without responsibility" is a gross sweeping generalisation that I presume comes without any support. I am constantly surrounded by men and women (from the current generation) who do not feel that way at all. I really do not understand on what basis you have arrived at this conclusion, but I find it sad that you have taken a small sample size and generalised it to the population (current generation) as a whole.

wibble,
I find the fervor that some feel towards their right to abortion and their celebration that they have another weapon [RU486] to kill their newly conceived babies indicates a social attitude toward human life as not more than organic and self serving. That having a social conscience is irrelavent in educating responsible behaviour regarding their sexuality. That abortion can happen casually without conscience as if it is just a boil in the womb that needs to be removed.

Abortion in any form, natural, surgical or chemical is intrusive and abusive to the health of a woman. In most cases where both are healthy abortion is more damaging than allowing a full term pregnancy.

For these abortionists, in their view, if a woman chooses to have children she is not more than sexually abused by her husband and his breeding stock. In societies where polygamy is normalised this attitude might prevail as women are considered as lesser than man. In some polygamist societies the beating of wives is sanctioned by their culture. But from the women I know who choose to have children they are delighted in the idea of motherhood, and have loving relationships from their husbands.

The current lefty trend in society is against marriage, committed relationships and a social responsibility to family. Hense the rise in STD, cervical cancer, AIDS etc are symptoms of an immoral society. That we are supposed to believe is an evolutionary trend. However all this has happened before in societies to its destruction [see Africa].