This is a very tricky issue. A million shades of grey.

there are mental health issues where i dont think its fair to say that becoming pregnant was part of a choice…when i was first going thru depression in my early 20s one of the ways i acted out was to be very self destructive in a lot of my thinking and there were a lot of times i said yes because i didnt think i was worthy enough to say no… i may have intellectually known the consequences but believe me i did not emotionally or rationally make any decision for about 3 years before i got to a point someone saw the depth of my depression and helped me get help
I guess the way I see it it just isnt cut and dried. There are no 1000% black and whites with it….
steff

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Danielle — thanks for clarifying your comment. I think what I objected to most in your initial comment was where you said something about the mother “creating” the baby, which I don’t see as a valid description of the mother’s action in a case of rape/incest. For me, I can imagine how traumatic it would be to actually have inside you the “creation” of a monster who had raped you — so to say that adoption is the logical choice there is to simplify, perhaps.

For a woman who wouldn’t normally consider abortion, a woman who does want children of her own, how would it be to be faced with a rape-pregnancy? Might some of those women wish to keep their babies?

But, overall, you’re absolutely right that adoption is a very good option.

I’m a little confused which saying is pro baby and which one is pro the mom choosing, I’m assuming pro-life is for baby, and pro-choice is for the choice option?

I am pro-life (meaning against abortion) and agree that when you choose intimacy, you choose the possible consequences, including pregnancy, and to “choose” to end that life is to take away that unborn fetus’s chance or “choice” to be born.

But you also still bring up some really good points, good food for thought, especially the tricky one about mom’s health vs. baby.

But as for the church’s stance, the one thing that touched me about their exceptions (i.e. rape, incest, health of mom) was that there’s a caveat in there that EVEN THEN, the possibility of abortion is meant to be carefully weighed, considered, prayed about, and decided through inspiration. The church doesn’t just say, cut and dry, yes to abortion in these more rare cases.

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The truly consistant positions are: no abortions ever, abortions for anyone that wants it. Or, if you believe that God has said there are specific exceptions, then you are consistant with what He says.

To your comment “it seems a bit heartless to me to tell a woman whose physical or mental health are in danger that she should have the baby because another woman would welcome it.”

Im sorry if this is how my comment came across to you. I think that you misread what I had written. I said in all other cases, except for when the mother’s health is at risk, adoption should be an better choice. I do not think at all that if a mother life were at risk that she should continue with the pregnany. In all other cases, where the mother will be fine, I just don’t understand the reasoning of why they choose abortion over adoption.

I meant my comment as more of awareness that there are three options instead of two. It shouldn’t be “hey im pregnant, do I have an abortion or keep the baby?” There are other options out there, like adoption, that are usually not brought into these types of conversations and I think it is sad.

As to Steffj89′s comment, “i don’t agree with the person who said what is the difference between abortion and adoption the end result is still that the mother doesnt raise the child…yes that is part of the end result but there is much more to”

I understand what you are saying as I was generalizing the end result, and I am aware that there is more to it, but I guess my point really was that if there is question in someones mind about the moral ramifications to abortion, but doesn’t want the baby, they can go the adoption route. I didn’t meant it as rude as it did sound. Either choice, abortion or adoption have more to it. There is a lifelong sense of loss either way you choose. So in my opinion, why not choose adoption is all I wanted to get across. It is a viable option and shouldn’t be left out of the choices.

Anyway, it is a personal decision for everyone, and I don’t see abortions ever being illegal with the politics involved. Of course it is better to have safe abortions than illegal ones. But I can do my part to raise awareness for adoption and hope that one less person chooses abortion because they realized that adoption is another option for them.

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It’s easy for me to get pregnant. Dick looks at me, and boom! I’m pregnant. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to struggle with infertility and adoptions, etc.

At the same time, it seems a bit heartless to me to tell a woman whose physical or mental health are in danger (I’m reducing the exceptions to this bec. that seemed to me to be what Elder Nelson was getting at) that she should have the baby because another woman would welcome it. We have to care for the woman as much as the baby!

I’m sure (and hope) that the exceptions are rare cases — hopeful, because all of the possible exceptions include some sort of personal tragedy and heart-breaking decision-making for the people involved.

However, the fact that any exception, ever, exists, bothers me. Even phrasing it as a mother “martyring” herself for the unborn child at the expense of her own life and the care of her other children is bothersome to me. If a mother jumped in front of a car and pushed her 5 yo out of the way, dying in her 5 yo’s place, would we call that martyrdom? (or heroism?) And if we would treat that scenario differently, isn’t that further evidence that a 5 yo is more of a “person” than a fetus/embryo?

This argument is starting to bother me. I hear it in varying degrees of emphasis/intention, but this is what it sounds like sometimes:

“Of course I would never, ever have an abortion myself, but I am fair and tolerant of others, so I must allow other women to do something that, of course, I would never, ever do myself.”

It’s a little bit condescending.

And it reminds me of the studies people have done (I read about it in Freakonomics), where people answer that “of course they would vote for a black man” but when asked about their neighbors “oh, well, they probably wouldn’t vote for a black man.” And, unsurprisingly, Neighbor A would but thinks neighbor B wouldn’t and Neighbor B repays the favor.

What’s the rationale behind thinking that something is wrong for yourself (abortion/racism/?) but okay (or inevitable) for someone else? Is it holding yourself to a higher standard? Thinking “I’m more careful/responsible/rational” than other women/people?

I want to address a few things: capital punishment, personal choice v. choosing for others, rarity of exceptions, and adoption.

Capital punishment. I think there are two issues:

1) Can we execute when we cannot be 100% sure a person deserves it?

2) Should we execute if we are sure they deserve it?

Until we have more confidence in our legal system, I think we can‘t execute, and this kind of leads to answering the underlying question of whether the state should make decisions like this. Perhaps we should leave the final judgment to someone who does know whether or not a person “deserves” it.

Once the government is allowed to tell anyone what they can do to their own bodies, it opens up a huge can of worms.

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