I get the pro-life/anti-choice side in that people should practice safe sex if adults & abstinence if not, but people do stupid things, and they & society are left with the results of their mistakes.

What defies logic is why “pro-lifers” want to ban abortion when they don’t offer a viable solution?  They say you should have the baby and give it up for adoption, but what they don’t understand is that many minority-race babies or unhealthy babies are not adopted and instead wind up in state facilities or abusive and neglected foster care & never get adopted, eventually “aging-out” into the world at age 18 with nobody and no support.  Of course, this is a typical path to homelessness and crime.

They also don’t understand the regret that women who give up their babies feel, some for the rest of their lives, even if they are part of an “open” adoption where they stay in contact with the baby and its new family.  Sure, it’s easy to say they deserve that for getting pregnant, but that’s a heavy punishment to put on anyone in a “punishment doesn’t fit the crime” context.  Studies have shown that women have way more regret over giving up for adoption vs abortion.

Then you have many poor white & black mothers who are single and choose to have more babies they can’t afford so they can make more money off governmental support and not have to find a man to help support them or go to work themselves.  They then wind up eventually living with one of their children who does the exact same thing and helps raise her grandchildren who are all on government support.

There are also the horror stories of foster kids being abused physically, psychologically, and sexually.  That would require a whole separate article.

A human being isn’t truly a human in the effective sense if they can’t function without thought (such as being in an irreversible coma or persistent vegetative state), or don’t have fetal viability — they are simply seeds in the same way that the seed of a tree is not a tree.  The development state of the seed means nothing if that seed isn’t viable to progress to its full state without its host.

Various courts have ruled that a fetus isn’t viable until at least 5 months into its term.  If you’re a woman who hasn’t figured out whether you want an abortion or not within 5 months, and there’s nothing wrong with you or your baby as far as you know, then you shouldn’t be allowed to have one.  A woman typically knows that she’s pregnant within 2 months of conception.

I have no problem with limitations on abortion.  What I have a problem with is unreasonable limitations, and on the flip side, no limitations.  Our political process has devolved into both sides having to fight for extreme positions in order to have reasonable access to their desired rights.  For example, pro-choice women have to fight for unrestricted abortion even though they agree that a third-trimester is unfathomable except in cases where fetal viability or the life of the mother are in jeopardy, because to allow any restrictions may open them up to some restrictions which are unreasonable, or will be eventually as lawmakers on the other side of the aisle attempt to chip away at their rights.  This is why diplomatic negotiators typically start out with a hard line and no offers of compromise — to see how much they can get and what position the other side will take, plus letting them know how committed they are to their position.

My propositions are:

1. Abortions should be restricted after 20 weeks (5 months), which is plenty of time for the mother to make a decision.
2. After that period of time, an abortion is only allowed in cases of fetal viability, jeopardy of the mother’s life or long-term health, or rape/incest.
3. The government should be paying the costs for women to have an abortion.  It’s way cheaper than paying for 18 years of welfare.  But limit it to once per year so they don’t abuse the system & limit it to 2 times total, and also make them attend a classes explaining the facts of life to them, including birth control & condoms as a requirement for getting the help to pay for it.
4. Deny welfare to those unmarried women who decide to have children in the future & can’t take care of them unless they were previously married when the child was conceived.  Phase it out slowly for those who already are on the various programs.  I’m talking all forms of welfare, including food stamps, government housing subsidies — everything.  We all have the opportunity to better ourselves, especially if we have no options otherwise.

We should also do something to increase adoptions of kids who are beyond toddler age.  Many people who want to adopt only want a baby or a very young child so they won’t know they’ve been adopted and so it feels like their child, but there are plenty of children between 5 & 17 who want & need to be adopted.  The problem with paying parents to adopt is you get the same mentality of foster parents who do so simply to make a buck.

We also need more people adopting a child (preferably one that’s not a baby) before they have a child of their own.  It wouldn’t take much to clear out the foster homes & orphanages if we could round up enough support for this idea.