This is especially the case when “taking responsibility” could mean
abstaining from sexual intercourse or ensuring that proper protection
was used, both which prevent pregnancy, abstinence which does so at 100 percent

I wish that people who are trying to lecture others about “responsible” sexual conduct would stop repeating the falsehood that abstaining from sexual intercourse is 100% effective in preventing pregnancy. While it is uncommon, it is possible for someone to get pregnant from ‘outercourse.’ I once knew a woman who became pregnant from a non-consensual sexual encounter that did not include intercourse. She had no legal recourse, however, because the man involved was her husband and the nation in which she lived did not recognize the concept of spousal rape. In the same way that pro-lifers here believe that a woman who has consented to sex has also consented to pregnancy, the courts there believed that a woman who has consented to marry a man has also consented to having sex with him on demand.

It is simple biology to acknowledge that sex can make babies, regardless if that was the intent. To make the argument that that’s what abortion is for, is an excuse to deny that consent to sex means consent to pregnancy.

It is simple biology to argue that smoking can cause cancer, regardless if that was the intent. To make the argument that that’s what chemotherapy is for, is an excuse to deny that consent to smoking means consent to cancer. Do you agree?

While I wouldn’t word it as “Consent to Sex is Consent to Pregnancy” . . . I would say that people who are CHOOSING to engage in sexual relations need to recognize that it is a possibility of happening. It is sad because pregnancy is not the only consequence (STDs? Social, Emotional . . . ), yet it is the reality of this heated discussion. So should we be also saying that Consent to Sex is Consent to STDs, too? Some STDs are forever and there is no “cure”. I believe that abstinence is the ONLY 100% prevention method for STDs and pregnancy. We make rules for our kids to protect them . . . it’s just too bad that many people find out that abstinence is something that could have protected them after they have to meet the consequences head on.

I am
really surprised that so many people can view a fetus as a “third party,
taking up residency in a body”. That statement sounds so imposing, as if
the third party had a choice in taking up residency. But in a way I can understand
where this statement comes from when pregnancy is also viewed as a consequence
of sex.

Yes, biologically pregnancy can be the consequence of
sex. Sex can be used for fun and personal enjoyment. But sexual encounters can
also be very spiritual and emotional between a couple. Just as sex can be
viewed in several different lights, so can pregnancy. Someone very near and dear to myself viewed
pregnancy as something completely horrible that happens to a woman’s body that
results in a 9 month jail sentence…and motherhood as 18 years of forced
servitude. Other people have looked on pregnancy as a consequence
that can be rectified through abortion that way they can continue living life
they way they have chosen. Child birth and pregnancy has been called miraculous. I chose to see pregnancy in a very different light.

When I had my daughter, out of wedlock and unemployed, I was very scared. How can a party girl with no concept of reality who lives for her own selfish ambitions become a good mother? I knew I had several choices:

1) I could choose to terminate pregnancy.

2) Adoption.

3) Keep my child and raise her myself…which would
include earning a degree, finding viable employment, and possibly marriage.

None of these options seamed like a very good choice at the time. However…

I chose to keep my daughter and it was not the easiest path to choose. I went
back to school. I got a job. I married her father and that was a very wrong decision
which resulted in a divorce. In between marriage and divorce, I chose to have
another child, a little boy.

I do not regret any of my decisions. I experienced the
miracle of a child growing inside of me twice. I experienced personal growth in
a way I never thought possible. Yes, living for your children is tiring,
sometimes heart wrenching work. It has taught me how strong I really am, how
resourceful I can be, how brave I can be when I have to be, how much love my heart can hold. I don’t think I would have gone back to college or pursued a
career if I didn’t have my children to think of first. I don’t regret any of
the changes, including stretch marks, this new life has brought to me. I am
part of something big! My children look to me for comfort, love and security.
We don’t have a lot of things, but what we have is what we need and then some.
Most of all, we have each other and that is what family is all about.

In my experience, there was and still is, a lot of life
to find when I look outside of myself. When I think of everything I could have
been, it pales in comparison to the life I chose to live. Life is all about
choices after all. I chose life!

If you are having sex and not planning on having a baby, I am guessing you are smart enough to know where babies come from. Therefore, if you do not want to get pregnant, PUT A CONDOM ON! Wow, problem solved. How hard can it be? You can get BC pills at Walmart for 7.00. People are just being lazy and using abortion as BC because they cant be responsible. Very sad.

When you consent to sexual intercourse with a person, you give consent to that one person’s putting one of his/her body parts inside one part of your body for a relatively short time. That person’s friends, siblings, and born children are not included in that consent. None of them has a right to put any of his/her body parts inside any part of your body without each one getting separate consent – and if they do put any of their body parts inside any part of your body without getting separate consent, that is rape.

I frankly do not think zygotes, blastocyst, and embryos are persons, but if you are Catholic, you probably do. Why would you imagine that a zygote has a right to put its body inside any part of your body without getting separate consent if the born children of the person to whose intimacy you consented have to get their own separate consent?

How can your consent to one specific person’s putting a body part inside one place in your body be consent to another’s doing so when that other does not even exist yet? And you can it be consent to another’s putting its body inside a completely different place in your body and for a relatively long time?

Frankly, pregnancy involves events in your body quite different from the events that occur there during sexual intercourse. If you consent to events that occur during sexual intercourse, are you consenting to events that do not occur during it? I do not understand your logic.

Finally, pregnancy that is not aborted or miscarried inevitably leads to childbirth by either vaginal delivery or caesarian section. If one considers a zygote/embryo/fetus a unique person, then that person in vaginal delivery is going to penetrate your vagina. If it did not obtain specific consent to penetrate that part of your body, apart from the consent you gave to the different person you had sexual intercourse with, and you did not want it ever to penetrate your vagina, that pregnancy meets the standards of law as a threat of rape and the vaginal delivery meets the standards as actual rape.

It can be argued that you can have a caesarian instead, but a caesarian is invasive surgery for which consent has to be obtained. If you did not give specific consent for it before you got pregnant, and you did not want the doctor ever to perform one, what is that caesarian? The doctor cuts open one of your sex organs with a knife. That meets the standards of law as aggravated assault on a sex organ. Your pregnancy then probably meets the standards of law as a threat of aggravated sexual assault.

In the case of a pregnancy to which a woman did not give specific consent in advance, unless abortion is a legal alternative, the government is therefore forcing the woman to experience a threat of rape or aggravated sexual assault for several months and to experience rape or aggravated sexual assault in giving birth. Conversely, if abortion is a legal alternative, it is a form of self-defense against such a threat. You will argue that deadly force can only be used in self defense to save one’s life, but that is not true. The law allows a person to use such force if necessary to prevent/stop what he/she believes with cause to be a threat or act of rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, or robbery, and it allows a third party to use such force if necessary to help prevent/stop such a threat or act.

You will of course argue that an embryo or fetus is not a rapist or assaulter because it has no intent to rape or assault. The fact, however, is that a legally insane rapist or assaulter may believe that he/she is showing you love and kindness by threatening to penetrate your vagina or cut open one of your sex organs with a knife by force. The threat is still perceived with cause as a threat of rape or aggravated sexual assault, and deadly force can still be used in self-defense and the defense of another, even though the perpetrator is legally insane and therefore cannot be found guilty.

But what you will still not understand is that, if the government bans abortion as a legal alternative for the woman, the government itself becomes the party with intent to rape or sexually assault the woman. And indeed, it even has the requisite desire for sexual satisfaction, as the government wants to force the woman’s body to sexually reproduce babies whether or not she has consented to do so and takes satisfaction from the act. Thus, by making abortion illegal, you will force your own government to be a rapist and sexual assaulter of women and girls, to break its own laws.

You will probably argue that the view I have presented is perverse. My advice to you is this. Right now, your church is embroiled in an international scandal for having covered up the heinous crimes of rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse by its clergy. Did you never bother to note that the clergy did not understand the heinousness of its crimes?

That clergy thinks women are mindless breeding animals to be used by those in authority for sexual reproduction against their will, without their consent, and claims that using deadly force either in self-defense or defense of another threatened with rape or sexual assault is not justified, but effectively raping women to get babies out of them is justified. That is the nature of the mentality of those you accept as religious authorities. I do no say that you are perverse for so doing because we have freedom of religion here. But our nation’s laws say quite clearly that we do not elevate life above freedom from sexual coercion and therefore above honor here.

Women in this nation are accorded the dignity of persons, and you and your church do not have the right here to rape or sexually assault them or use the government to force them to continue pregnancies to which they never specifically consented.

Get over it. Roe v Wade was not the “liberal” decision pro-life people claim it to be. It was a decision of a largely conservative court. If it bothers you so much, move to a Latin American nation with a government over which your church has more influence – I’m thinking of one where, thanks to Catholic influence, a woman who takes a man to court for raping her, if he offers to marry her and she refuses, she is put in prison. That is so typical of Catholic justice, blasphemy of the Spirit of the Lord, for where that Spirit is, there is liberty, because liberty is just as important as life.