I used to think abortion was really black and white before I watched this, I was really really for abortion but now I'm honestly not sure
did anyone else have their opinions partially or completely changed by this?
The world Forgeting by the world forgot
It did not change my opinion, I think partially because I used to be emphatically anti-abortion until I was faced with having to make the decision myself. I was using birth control and it failed. My marriage was already in trouble, but I had the added complication of being on large doses of lithium for bipolar disorder. After researching the likely birth defects of lithium exposure, and being cautioned by several doctors of my risk being much higher of even worse defects because of the high dosage I was taking, I decided not to continue the pregnancy. I still feel that I made the right choice. I do not agree with abortion as a casual means of birth control, but I feel that is some situations it is a valid decision.
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
Whoa... how can watching countless videos of pro-lifers ranting about murdering doctors and blashphemers and making Christian sins into capital offenses cause anyone who isn't already a militant conservative turn pro-life? This movie only changed my opinion in that I now consider pro-life people even scarier than I did before.
shareYeah I know crazy, right? I mean, psh, who wants unborn children to live? Crazy world we live in. Pro Life is just for angry, violent, irrational hicks.
By the way, I was being sarcastic.
"You breathed..then you stopped..I breathed...and dried you off..."
-DEFTONES-
So, you're saying that wanting to kill people who don't believe in your religion is completely sane and rational? Have fun in jail.
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Can you really be that stupid, wtxx?
The Doctor is out. Far out.
Typical liberal intolerence
share"liberal intolerence (sic)"
Now THAT is a first. I think you've got it backwards son.
Pro-choicers believe individuals have the right to make their own decisions in cases of abortions, that makes us TOLERANT. While, conservative pro-lifers on the other hand believe everyone should believe what they themselves believe, thus making them INTOLERANT of others beliefs and opinions.
Most pro-choicers will tell you they believe abortion to be a terrible, terrible thing that nobody should ever have to go through or be victim of. However, we also believe that it is simply an issue where government and religion have no place.
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This is the weirdest thought train I've ever seen.
"Not all pro-lifers are insane" somehow leads you to "You want to kill people who disagree with you."
You're a mentalist.
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
Long live Queen Sarah Palin, Esther!
Whoa... how can watching countless videos of pro-lifers ranting about murdering doctors and blashphemers and making Christian sins into capital offenses cause anyone who isn't already a militant conservative turn pro-life? This movie only changed my opinion in that I now consider pro-life people even scarier than I did before.
I am only mid-way through this movie, but I just wanted to make a point.
Yes, mostly pro-life extremist, or "crazies" are being portrayed in this, but I believe that's a point he's trying to make. And when has anyone seen a documentary with moderate views? Because I really haven't, it would make the film boring and pointless.
And no, I don't think all pro-life people are just like the extremist in the film, however, I have encountered many pro-life people that have called me pro-abortion because I am pro-choice. And I have encountered many pro-life activists on campus that accuse students of acts we have not even committed and are stereotyping us as young students.
Again, the point of making this film was to show the extremists, not to show people who are moderate in their opinions, as well as to provoke people to think.
Well, if that was his goal he definitely achieved it. The reason I was expecting the documentary to be unbiased is because when I read the back of the box it said it was unbiased. That was the whole reason I rented it was because I wanted to see something unbiased. You are correct in your statement that there aren't very many unbiased documentaries. If you are going to run a scientific study (and I'm not saying he was even trying to) then you don't want to be biased. You may have a hypothesis you want to investigate, but the whole point is to see whether or not you're on to something. I was disappointed because I don't get anything out of watching a bunch of "extremists" with crazy viewpoints. I'm not sure if you're saying in the tail-end of your post that it wasn't his point to provoke people to think or that is was his point. Regardless, this documentary didn't make me think too much. I got bored watching all the extremists. I have a stance on this issue, but I wanted to learn more because there are certain aspects that aren't cut and dry. Maybe I should make my own documentary. If I want to watch a bunch of people act crazy, I watch MTV or VH1 on any given night with their "reality" shows. Maybe I'm crazy, but I didn't pick up a documentary on abortion to be entertained. I'm not sure what your reasons were for watching, but I watched it to explore the issue further.
On a side note, I understand how college campuses are. There are many people on both sides of an issue that feel very strongly about their viewpoints. Sometimes they do more harm than good.
I know it's easy to point out that he interviewed "extreme" people but a point we may have all missed is that perhaps a large portion of the 'active' pro-lifers tend to have "extreme" opinions. I think that is kind of the point. Sure you may personally know pro-lifers that are normal and rational citizens but if a large portion of the population are more radical then interviewing the 'crazies' is more accurate. You can't search out the 2 normal people and make people think that those are the majority when the facts might be to the contrary. Plus, they are really looking at activists behaviours in this film. The activists are the people who fight against abortion using seemingly immoral tactics. Pro-choicers are more reactionary and get riled up due to the pro-lifers assertions. Thus, no pro-life rights violations means no pro-choice anger. It's very circular. I think that at the end of the day many pro-lifers are just willing to do things that are just as immoral as abortion itself and that is a harmful social issue. I really think that individuals should make individual decisions. You should intervene when someone asks for you to defend them and not when you think they are asking. These are two completely different things. If you can say that you are defending the unborn who can't defend themselves you are asserting that they want to be defended. This is mainly because you know you want to be alive. However, the pro-choicer could just start making claims to and say that the unborn don't want to be born and so pro-lifers are violating rights also. There are obviously countless arguments so basically, leave everyone to their own....oh, and no I am not pro-abortion but anti-pro-life organizations. Sorry for the rant.
shareThere are many many many aspects of pro-choice motives that have been brought up before that deserve responses, but this one I have never ever ever seen before:
Do you mean to tell me that it is reasonable to believe that an unborn child does not want to live, does not want to be born?
Do you seriously believe that a child a couple of months in the womb (or a couple of months out of- for that matter) consciously wants to die?
Please, no matter what other arguments you have against pro-life or for abortion or choice or whatever your stance, please be honest - Do you seriously believe that protecting a child allowing it to be born - regardless of the woman's rights - is infringing on the child's right to not be born?
Seriously, honestly, truthfully, because I am astounded by what I read, do you mean to say that an unborn child does not want to live?
Here is my refutation - the child cannot speak for itself (although common sense derived from experience points to children, born and unborn, having the instinct to remove themselves from harm, if it is by crying as a baby, or trying to avoid an abortionists needle as in ultrasound images from a documented abortion); So if the child cannot speak for itself it either wants to be born/live or wants to not be born/die. We cannot find out what it wants until it can tell us, and it can't (we assume).
If we see a person sleeping and ask her if she wants to live or die, with no prior knowledge of her desires, she won't answer, because she is asleep. Should we then assume that she does not want to live (does not want to wake up) because she does not tell us so? Well, whatever her wishes, we give life the benefit of the doubt because she can always kill herself later, she can't very well 'live' herself after she's been killed.
If you're hunting and you see a movement in the bushes that could be your friend or could be a deer, do you choose to shoot first and then check if it was your friend? No, when in doubt, you don't shoot.
When in doubt whether an unborn child wants to live or not, you don't shoot, you don't eliminate the possibility of life. It's a pro-choice stance in a way. You choose life.
Similarly, when faced with whether or not the unborn is a human being, you don't shoot. The mistake of killing an innocent human being is greater that the drawback of not having killed a lump of cells before it turned into a baby. But now we're into other arguments and I promised I wouldn't delve into them.
The question still stands, do you honestly, as a truthful (because I hope we're all interested in truth, no matter what our opinions) human being, believe that there is a real possibility of there being a suicidal foetus, that some unborn children don't want to be born?
Do you mean to tell me that it is reasonable to believe that an unborn child does not want to live, does not want to be born?
Do you seriously believe that a child a couple of months in the womb (or a couple of months out of- for that matter) consciously wants to die?
Please, no matter what other arguments you have against pro-life or for abortion or choice or whatever your stance, please be honest - Do you seriously believe that protecting a child allowing it to be born - regardless of the woman's rights - is infringing on the child's right to not be born?
Notice how he never replied to you. Pro-Lifers are WRONG for this ONE fact
1) They think it is okay to impose their world views (most-often religiously motivated in this particular case. In a country that is supposed to be secular) on people who do not share them. If the idea that we can raise our kids to believe whatever the hell we want (including raising them to be sociopaths or brain-washed idiots), why can't we choose WHEN we have them? If there is a problem with a fetus dying, why isn't there with millions of sperm dying?
Ridiculous...
"If there is a problem with a fetus dying, why isn't there with millions of sperm dying?" Are too young to have had any sex ed? Fetus does not equal sperm. It's a ridiculous comparison.
The moon is dead. Long live the moon.
A fetus doesn't want or not want anything. Because it's a fetus.
shareI'm 100% with wtxx on this one.
Watching insane people, true crime stories and watching graphic footage didn't change my opinion on it. This isn't like a Michael Moore movie where you're like "Well look at all those facts, I hate Bush now". This gives you both sides of the spectrum in the fairest of light, and it's up to you to decide your stance. I just found myself finding most of the pro-life advocates more insane than they already were, especially the one guy who thought blasphemers should be executed.
"So if someone is at a child's baseball game and shout's "god damnit", they should be executed"
"Yes sir"
I didn't think going into the movie that my opinions on abortion would necessarily be changed, but I was hoping to get a better understanding of the opposing opinion so that I could better understand why this issue is such a divisive one. I ended up being really dissapointed that the pro-choice opinion in the movie wasn't really cleared up for me. I agreed with a lot of them that yes the killing of doctors who perform abortions is horrible, there are some crazy people who are pro-life, some people are good at distorting the message of Christianity, etc. But where was the explanation on why abortion should be legal? The pro-life stance seems simple: abortion is the killling of unborn babies. The doctor at the beginning who was washing the chopped up baby was to me the most powerful and disturbing image in the movie and made a pretty clear case for the pro-life stance. It didn't require any words, theories or explanations. I can't say there was anything in the movie that made a clear case for why doing such a thing is ok. It seemed to be just about making pro-life supporters look crazy and simpleminded. Did anyone else feel the same?
shareI agree. The scene where the baby is in the pan, all torn apart wrecked me. Okay, I have to say that I am currently pregnant (Yea me!) and I went through fertility treatments to get to this point, (1 cycle of IVF). But, even when I was firmly committed to not having anyone's baby, I was against abortion. Now, of course, I am even more against it because I just know it is wrong and quite often there isn't any reason for it, if we ladies use an ounce of prevention.
What I found to be interesting is the fact that even though a baby starts developing as soon as the sperm successfully fertilizes the egg, and if left alone, would eventually become a person, people are convinced that the baby is just an "it" and not of the same species as the murdered doctors. I don't know, maybe I am missing a biology class or two, but a person is a person, is a person no matter what stage of life they are in. I had my first ultrasound done when I was six gestational weeks and guess what? I saw my itty bitty babies heartbeat. It is amazing what science can do for both sides. My doctors and nurses helped my husband and I create our baby, first outside the womb, then inside (I had a 3-day egg transfer). Abortions can stop a baby with the same medical intervention.
Now, as a woman, I think the idea that (as presented by the prochoice side), if a woman doesn't have access to the abortion procedure she will be doomed to unwanted pregnancies, and death sentences from botched abortions is more of a sad commentary on the modern woman, than a medical necessity. I speak as a woman who has enjoyed a very sexual existence for most of my life and I am here to say that again an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure. I have family and friends who have had abortions and not ONE got pregnant as a result of rape, incest or were in danger of losing their life if they continued the pregnancy. Like the women in the movie, most of the women I know got pregnant by "accident" ( even though we all know if we have sex with/or without protection there is a chance of conception, but that is another tangent), and basically were not trying to have anyone's baby at that moment and just got rid of them.
I wonder how many unwanted pregnancies we would have, if we ladies would just follow our female counterparts in the wild (yes I am talking about female animals), and just mate with the males we want to procreate with? Or, if you just have to get your freak on use something! I don't know, pick your poison, the pill, patch, shot, condom. Or, if you really want to get radical try not having sex with every guy that gets you hot and bothered at the club, party, pool, store,concert, book reading ect. not every encounter with the opposite sex has to involve penetration we all have a few knotches on our belts we could do without and would not have if we had just gotten to know the person a little better that goes for both genders.
I will end this contribution to this board by saying I do know one woman who would have qualified under the life of the mother being endangered category. This is someone I knew personally and was directly affected by her death, my own mother. She died while in labor with my brother who was stillborn at full term. She left behind seven young children ranging in age 19 mo - 13 years. She did not want an abortion and her decision to have the baby had an seriously tragic outcome. But, with that said I think if we limited abortions to those kinds of situations we would still have fewer than we have today.
The issue you are addressing was covered in the film. At least two of the interviewees from the Left openly admited that the embryo/fetus was a living human. They also talked about values and decision making. The woman has a trump card since she is the host of a living obligate parasite. Legally in this country a person does not have a duty to 'save' or protect another person. Likewise, a person can take another person's life with only the thinest of recourses under many circumstances. And don't get me started on how we treat the lives of non-Americans overseas. Let's just leave it as the cold fact that people really do have decision-making authority over the lives of others. In the case of the fetus, only one person has that authority.
shareYou have to realize they are using high powered microscopes that in many cases are 1000 times larger than the actual size. Its part of the manipulation. Ask yourself this ... If there were a fire and you can only save one of the 2- a vat of 100 test tube babies or a live 3 yr old boy, who would you save? The true 'out there' antiabortion crowd would probably choose the test tube babies.I want know part of these people.
shareThat's an interesting question.
shareI completely agree with your last point. But this movie showed, pretty graphically, a late term abortion. It was very disturbing to anyone functioning properly. But the dr clearly states that it represents less than a percent of their procedures. I think the closer the pregnancy gets to becoming viable, the more serious the moral and legal consequences. To ignore that there are stages of development is where I see the religious running off the rails.
I think they said the baby bits were from a 20 week fetus. I'd need to look in to facts like when the nervous system is developed to truly firm up my opinion on how heinous is this procedure. But it certainly looked like a baby, and my knee jerk reaction is that the mother better have some pretty extreme circumstances to justify that choice. Whereas the day after pill could only be rebuked by the most credulous of believers. Normally I dislike Chomsky, but he had some good thoughts on the whole thing.
I haven't seen this documentary yet, but have added it to my rental list to give it a go - mostly to see what's said as I'm pretty much staunchly on the pro-choice side of the fence. Really don't think anything will shift me from that position either but you never know.
gmain17, if you're interested here's the position and explanation from this pro-choicer. It doesn't necessarily match what other pro-choicers think as we all have our different reasons for our position:
1. A woman's life is more important that that of an unborn embryo or foetus. Controversial I know, but that's my position. I'm more concerned about the well being and life of the woman who already exists than the hypothetical life that a foetus may have, as up to birth their life outside the womb is not a certainty. And I don't agree with the "well if she doesn't want to get pregnant she shouldn't be having sex" rhetoric. A woman has a right to a healthy, normal sex life, and even with all the protection in the world there is still a chance of conceiving.
2. Women's rights and equality are dependent upon the right to have an abortion if they want one. A family member of mine (back in the early 1900s) died from having a back street abortion. She was married, and had already had 11 children, and 3 miscarriages and couldn't bear the thought of going through it again. Because there was no legal right for her to make that choice she died, leaving behind all her children and her husband. Now some will think "how selfish of her to risk her life like that", and I'd agree it was selfish but I accept that desperation makes people do terrible things - wouldn't have happened if there had been a legal safe way to do it (and yes this has played a large part in my position on this topic). Look at countries where abortion is completely illegal - women, by and large, do not have equaility in these societies and have no hope of equality when they can't even control what happens to their own bodies.
3. Up to 3 months many women have miscarriages - far more then most people realise. I only really agree with abortion up to the 3 month mark - rightly or wrongly it seems to me women are choosing to have a miscarriage within this time frame, as in many cases the abortion can be performed without surgery and is a simple painless procedure for woman and foetus (as far as we currently know).
4. Pro-choice does not force anyone to have an abortion - pro-life is forcing women to have babies when they don't want to. That's a simple equation to me; one is fair, one is not.
These are my personal main reasons for being pro-choice (and believe me I challenge them on a regular basis). I hope it at least shows that being pro-life does not mean you have to be pro-abortion or heartless, or uncaring. Abortion is a terrible thing to go through and an awful decision to make - but it is a decision a woman has to make for herself based on her own life and opinions so must be a legal option for all women everywhere.
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"If the apocalypse comes, beep me."
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2. Women's rights and equality are dependent upon the right to have an abortion if they want one. A family member of mine (back in the early 1900s) died from having a back street abortion. She was married, and had already had 11 children, and 3 miscarriages and couldn't bear the thought of going through it again. Because there was no legal right for her to make that choice she died, leaving behind all her children and her husband. Now some will think "how selfish of her to risk her life like that", and I'd agree it was selfish but I accept that desperation makes people do terrible things - wouldn't have happened if there had been a legal safe way to do it (and yes this has played a large part in my position on this topic). Look at countries where abortion is completely illegal - women, by and large, do not have equaility in these societies and have no hope of equality when they can't even control what happens to their own bodies.
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I am going to look for the article I read and see if I can get a link posted... what you are saying about back street abortions is very true. In countries where abortion is illegal, the rate of abortion is the same as in countries that have legalized it. The difference is in how many women die or end up permanently damaged and unable to ever get pregnant if they choose to later in life. All outlawing does is force women to unsanitary and unsafe practitioners or to attempt to end the pregnancy themselves. There will always be women who find abortion a necessary option, and if they make that choice they should not have to die from it. There will never be a compromise that is agreeable to everyone, and there are ways to lower abortion rates. Kids should be able to take sex ed without parental consent, and with the teen pregnancy rates being so high I think it should be mandatory. And preaching abstinence does NOT work. Of course that should always be presented as an excellent choice, but it is completely unrealistic to think most kids will not become sexually active. Birth control and emergency contraception should be easily obtained without parental consent, and kids should be very aware of the difficulties of parenthood and the risk of STDs. Abortion and it's risks should be discussed, but it should be presented as a last resort, not a form of birth control. And the educational videos graphically depicting labor and delivery should be shown... I know kids who watched it and it made them (especially the girls) really think about the consequences of unprotected sex. People worry that making condoms and other forms of birth control will encourage kids to have sex but guess what... THEY ALREADY ARE!!! Unless you can lock your kids up and constantly supervise them until they are 18, you can't realistically expect them to abstain. I am very fortunate to have a mother I could go to with anything, and when I felt ready to become sexually active, I went to her and she took me to get birth control. She did not like the idea of me having sex, but she also knew I would anyway and she wanted me to be protected. Most kids don't have parents like that, so they need to be able to go to a counselor or sex ed teacher and to a health unit for birth control and for emergency contraception if needed. The only way we will ever lower abortion rates in teens is to do everything possible to protect them from pregnancy in the first place.
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
It reinforced my stance (pro-choice). It is out-of-this-world for any pro-lifers to ever consider what they're doing to be constructive. Unless they oppose, war, weapons, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, etc., I really don't want to hear it. And unless any of these fundamentalists are going to pay for a woman's way to bear the child then get off it. Or better yet--they should agree to adopt the child(ren) that they so dearly "love" and spend all of their time trying to save -- or is it about something other than that? And let's face it, this argument will never go away -- without pro-lifers how would Republicans ever run for office? They'd have no cause to pander to.
I loved the parts where it really drove home the fact that these pro-lifers are all disgusting middle aged men with no families and nothing to do and have no way of ever having sex with a real woman. I know that what I am saying is crossing the line, whatever, but please, come, read between the fcking lines. Take a look at these LOSERS who just want to control women and kill people. Great.
This documentary, in its even-handed way, was really great. Love the black and white and I love all of the pro-choice people who were brave enough to speak...I mean, it sucks that they're practically creating a death-wish for themselves but I love their bravery in the face of complete and utter lunacy on the part of the pro-life-brigade.
DONE.
I completely agree. And doesn't it drive you crazy that people say pro- abortion??? Who in the hell is pro- abortion??????? I truly wish that for one day that men could get pregnant.... this would never be an issue!!
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Who's pro-abortion? Seems you are.
And what's with the crazy talk about men getting pregnant? You think abortion would suddenly be legal all the time, or something? ... oh wait, IT ALREADY IS. You think that if men got pregnant suddenly the issue would, what, matter to them? Guess what, IT ALREADY DOES.
Men benefit from abortions far more than women do. Fact. How anyone thinks the situation would change for the better "if men got pregnant" is beyond me.
Think your opinions through.
The Doctor is out. Far out.
If men were able to get pregnant, abortions would be given out on the radio.
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
I realize this post was old but wanted to expand on some of the brilliant points made.
"Unless they oppose, war, weapons, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, etc., I really don't want to hear it"
Exacltly. You should have followed with the similarities between a fetus and a murderer to really drive home your point. (I am actually against capital punishment, but the point you're trying to make has no logic involved.)
"And unless any of these fundamentalists are going to pay for a woman's way to bear the child then get off it."
Again. great point. If you have a young child, say five years old, and come into financial hardship , you should be able to kill the child at this point. Unless these fundametalists are going to step in and start paying for the kid.
Your post really enforced my stance. As long as we are making generalizations (as in all pro-life people are right-wing fundamentalists)Most people who are adamantly pro-choice are incapable of logic.
Going into this film I didn't know which side I supported, and afterwards, I'm still undecided. However, what this film does, which is extremely important, is make a point in showing that this issue is extraordinarily complicated, and because of this, I think it succeeds wonderfully.
shareMy opinion hasn't changed, but I learned a lot, and I don't expect I will be so harsh with people who disagree with me. I hope others join me in mutual understanding, but looking at this board for the movie, I'm guessing not.
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I was on the fence, but a bit closer to pro choice before viewing this film. After watching it I'm more in favor of a pro-life view.
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