Didn't myself and many, many other people address this question like, five times each in this subject before, in numerous different tangents in the hopes of making our points painfully clear?
And I might add, there were more than enough explanations outside the considerations of rape, risk and deformity is factors- such as parental capability, individuality of fetus and mother, and questions over what happens if no foster parents are available in terms of upbringing.

If you're REALLY nice I might even bother coming back to this thread to repeat them... again....

By the way- when you say "scientific proof" what exactly do you mean? Would that include logic in general- or is this topic going to be "prove that a fetus is not alive or else I win"?
Because personally I don't care if it's alive or not- eggs are alive, sperm are also alive. A non-sentient blob growing off an adult person's body that can fit on a teaspoon isn't really a more convincing case in any way.

Anyway, I will answer that basically a woman should be allowed to abort at any stage in the pregnancy until it detaches from her body and thus becomes entirely individual- if she'd want to abort it she sure as heck aint going to look after it once born- and "somebody might adopt it" is not good enough- it's only a POSSIBILITY.

That's all for now- too late at night.

CJ Morgan,

I am not sure why I have to provide evidence that women "routinely, or even commonly, have abortions as a means for contraception". I was posing a purely hypothetical question.

However, for what it's worth:

According to eMJA in 2003 in Australia almost 1 in 5 pregnancies was terminated.

See: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/182_09_020505/cha10829_fm.html

This is actually a low rate of terminations compared to other Western countries. Still, I find it VERY hard to believe that one fifth of all pregnancies involved a "flawed" foetus or constituted a health risk to the mother. I think it reasonable to infer that many, perhaps most, of these terminations were "birth control abortions". However this is actually not relevant to my question.

You state you are pro-choice. Fair enough. But in the case of birth control abortions, up to what point are you pro-choice?

How far into the pregnancy do you think birth control abortions should be permitted?

If you want feel free to give two answers – one covering the case where contraception failed and one for cases where contraception was never attempted. (I am at a loss to know how you could ever distinguish between the two but let's suppose you could).

Can you come up with a number CJ Morgan?

Suzeonline, divine_msn

Interesting you should both pick on 12 weeks. In England according to the "Education for Choice" website an abortion may be procured up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. See:

http://www.efc.org.uk/Foryoungpeople/FAQs

Why 12 weeks Suzeonline, divine_msn?

Why not 24 weeks?

Any point prior to parturition, Steven. A foetus isn't a person until it's born.

It's a quite simple, if brutal, fact. As is the fact that any woman who terminates her pregnancy has to live with her decision for the rest of her life.

But it's her choice, and nobody else's.

An interesting article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117184531.htm

I'd suggest a termination period up to the point where the foetus could theoretically survive on it's own, albeit with medical intervention. That would be somewhere around 22-24 weeks, and perhaps co-incides with important brain developments. This also allows time for problems to show up on ultrasound or other tests.

Why any unwanted pregnancy would be allowed to progress this far would be beyond me, but sometimes we need limits.

I'm pro-choice but not pro-lifestyle abortion, but it's a moral thing for the individual. Unfortunately you can't exclude lifestyle abortions due to the fact that a woman can lie about her reasoning for getting the abortion. There's a billion genuine reasons someone might get an abortion with no apparent deformity to the foetus or risk to the mother's health.

Nice trolling bait though. Well done, again.

The question for me is when does one become a person. Defining a person as someone who has a knowledge of themselves and a desire to continue living. ie not die. Before that the feotus/child is no different than say a dog or a monkey. Indeed being totally reliant on others for survival makes them even less independent than a dog or a monkey.

The right to life must be given precedence only where the being in question has a desire to continue that life. To take such a persons life would be very wrong and infringe their most basic right. The right to life. If something/someone has no concept of future, life/death, self etc then killing them would not deprive them of anything and would be acceptable. This is the basis on which we indiscriminately and without a guilt, slaughter millions of animals every year.

To anyone who says just being human is enough without the conciousness or reasoning we recognise as seperating us from the rest of the animals, I ask you to justify why humans as a species are so special? Why to you is a deaf, dumb and blind human or a human in a vegetative state, or even a potential human so important and why they should be treated so well while far more intelligent animals are made to suffer? Why should any potential, not yet a person be given precedence over a currently living breathing person?

For us to decide the death of anything should be given much greater consideration and thought than we currently use and be based on harm, benefit, freedom, rationality and knowledge.

Oh and please please please no one say "because god said so" that is just laziness, ignorance and wrong because it doesnt answer the question. If your gunna argue for god tell me WHY god said it.