LogFAQs > #913646978

GeoMaggs posted...

Right, and most (all?) major religious groups frown on these too.

I wouldn't say most or all do. The ones that do tend to be large, though, so that gives them outsize influence.

GeoMaggs posted...

I say pro-lifers be legally required to adopt at least one child

That would be challenging, given that in most first-world countries there are actually more families wanting to adopt than their are kids to be adopted, and most of the children that are up for adoption have special needs - physical, cognitive, or behavioural - that require highly focused and specialized care that many families simply aren't equipped to give.

In fact, changing attitudes around parenting and abortion are one of the exact reasons for that. The biggest source of children being placed for adoption used to be unwed mothers (back when that was a major social stigma) being pressured to give up their babies and couples that had unwanted children because they had no access to contraceptives and/or abortion. With contraceptives now common and single parenting now accepted (as well as increased numbers of potential parents due to same-sex relations, infertility, or single prospective parents), the number of unwanted children has plummeted, so there are already multi-year waiting lists for adopting a (healthy) child in most first-world nations.

Speaking as someone who's already going through the (lengthy) process of adoption-prep, I'd rather not flood the system with any more "competition".

DrCidd posted...

That's a fair point that I hadn't previously considered. But does it justify abortion?

Obviously that's a matter of personal opinion. I would say yes, because I do not believe a fetus constitutes an independent lifeform that early in its development. It is, essentially, an organ of the mother at that point - part of her body, not much different than her liver (and it would be just as dead if it was removed from her). Once the fetus develops a central nervous system and develops to the point where it can exist independent of the mother, then it's a different story, at least in my eyes.

Everyone will draw that line in a different spot, though.
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