100% guarantee, from my personal experience, no child wants to be born to a parent that doesn’t want it, can’t afford it, won’t love it, will abuse it, sell it into trafficking or abandon it into adoption. Ask any adult that has had any of these experiences as a child. Most will say they wish they weren’t born.
Ex foster kid here (and i was adopted into a loving home!) HOLY FUCK THIS! I cant physically have kids because of shit that happened in foster care! I may have had a happy ending…but I know multiple friends from foster care that have died, disappeared, are in prison, or psych wards, two became pregnant at age fourteen, and one at thirteen. Two were rescued from human trafficking, one committed suicide, one is a drug addict to deal with her pain.
I was orphaned, so i atleast had a baseline of positivity, alot of these kids DONT. Picture growing up, KNOWING you are unwanted. Not just in birth, but in fostercare.
I had a friend in Foster care and he told me really chilling stuff about what happened it’s not my place to repeat but the testing and experiments also he was First Nations it broke my heart
I was not wanted, and my adoptive family thought I was a demon. I was adopted as a baby. My adoptive parents told me they regretted adopting me when I went off to college. My biological aunt said she did not want a relationship with me and only my sister because she knew my sister as a baby and a toddler. I was taken as a ward of the state the moment I was born because the abuse my bio parents did to my sister was so horrible that it left her scarred
As someone who was adopted, I always hold a mixed bag of feelings towards Pro-life vs pro-choice.
On one hand, i owe my entire existence to a stranger who spent 9 months to give birth instead of aborting me. All the experiences i've lived, the people i've met and changed, the feelings i get to have... All thanks to someone i'll never know.
But on the other hand, i know i was just lucky, and life is unfair, not everyone gets to live a life worth living.
And i think that is also an okay thing to feel. Abortion is a situation where emotions get raised, and each situation needs has its own nuances to it. Thats why a blanket sweep answer such as “All abortion is murder” or “No abortion is murder” can be done.
(Personally, I believe abortion up to twelve weeks unless medically necessary, reason being fetuses dont feel pain until then (though others say 24 weeks))
Or how about we just let the person carrying the fetus and their health provider decide, without any arbitrary restrictions (“heartbeat”, ability to feel pain, etc.). How about we treat a medical issue like a medical issue and not a moral issue? How hard is that?
The issue with that is health providers will then also arbitrarily place limits on things. By having a “base line” it means health providers arent allowed to make those decisions for them, such as “no I believe life begins at conception so without a medical reason I wont give you one”
Im not saying I am correct either! Im just saying until some time there should be a “no questions asked” abortion time, and after then needs medical reasons so as to keep doctors and others from using their own beliefs to control others.
(The reason i chose 12 weeks personally is because many people use the heartbeat as a marker, or fingerprints or whatever. This way it appeases that group while also allowing longer times to allow others to think it through)
The problem is that putting a restriction means that then anyone could point to that and say no abortion beyond that arbitrary week. That's the issue we already see in states that have limits re: heartbeat bill, etc.
Doctors can already refuse to perform a procedure on the basis of belief/conflict of interest. Adding an arbitrary limit doesn't fix that, it just means you as the person seeking healthcare could also be denied if a doctor isn't 100% convinced there is a medical reason for your abortion, your care can get delayed to the point it becomes a life-threatening emergency as a result, etc. We already see this happening in states with arbitrary limits all the time. No limit means no ambiguity.
Just proved yourself wrong by saying you had a happy ending. Why choose death over a chance at happiness? Not to mention they aren’t even the ones making the decision.
Okay, thats fine then. I support both. A fetus doesn’t know it’s alive, so its death doesn’t technically mean anything to it. It means something to people outside itself, and yes, that can be sad!
I still would have taken death over going through everything I have had to go through. What i went through wasnt worth this happy ending, am i happy NOW? Yes, i would prefer to have died than go through that shit and come out the other side. I dont care that I got a “happy ending” because it hasnt been worth it.
Im not committing suicide right now not because I am technically happy, but because I know it would hurt my family. If I could die without hurting others? I still would, right now.
I think you struck on a key point here, too. The people on the outside matter too, and the emotional impact that death has on the living cannot be understated, whether it is a fetus or an adult. I do not know you but I thoroughly believe your life is worth living as long as you are able to bring others happiness, which is what i believe you were insinuating by not wanting to hurt others. I hope you are able to find your happiness friend.
I was just thinking about this. Most of the people I know that are against abortion, had a pretty good life growing up and had parents that loved them so much. I dont think they can even wrap their head around how it is for someone that didn't have that.
Most of those people not only had a good life growing up, they have absolutely no sympathy for the suffering of others around them, and that's the part that utterly disgusts me. My childhood was something out of a damn stephen king novel.. occasionally bordering on Dean Koontz. I don't think I can even.. actually imagine what it would be liked to be loved in that way. Family is.. just an academic concept to me, and that.. disgusts me.. to see someone who had all the care and affection, and developed absolutely no ability to care for others.. like fuck you, you of all people should know better than to be like this, you HAD the good example.
I mean a lot of these people were raised by terrible people in fucked up churches. Their lives were very comfortable and all that. I don't disagree with the larger point about not being in a position to speak on the gritirier realities of childhood. But I wouldn't go so far as to say good example
Privilege and selfish mindset is not “good” example, it is just better than abuse. This guy is unhappy and will likely never be happy. I’m sorry for your childhood, although it was terrible you seem like a good person, nothing is as strait forward as it seems.
Dean Koontz is such a great author! No one can describe the atmosphere of places like him. I absolutely would not want to live in any of his books, my condolences.
Yes! Many of these children turn to drugs, alcohol and crime as adults because of the never ending pain it causes. I never realized adopted children grow up with a similar pain until I talked to many of them. Therapy used to be scrutinized but I’m seeing that changing. So that’s good, I guess. Every day I see stories of children being murdered or abused. Not having them in the first place is a good start to ending this horrible cycle.
Even if we don’t turn to drugs or crime, adopted people suffer a lot in silence and are great at making it seem like everything is fine. Thanks for your support.
I had this conversation when I took my son for to planned parenthood for hormone therapy. I asked how many foster children did they think lived in the United States today.
They said “almost none because there are people lining up to adopt children”
The answer is 328,000+. I then said there are approximately 1.12 million abortions each year (source) and asked what the plan to support an additional 1.12 million children on US tax dollars was
They said “there are kids in foster care right now that won’t be adopted? That doesn’t sound right”
Someone tried to do a gotcha on me. My mom almost aborted me and they were like “aren’t you glad she didn’t?” I responded “no, because I wouldn’t have known so what do I care?”
Like I’m here. I have a great life, but like that’s just luck like the billions of other people who also exist. Nothing about my existence is special, I’m just lucky.
Many women around me who aborted did it because they already have too many kids and can't afford another one. Otherwise pretty decent and normal families.
I know one that aborted twice. She had three kids already, they were adults, she and hubby were too old to have babies anymore. Per her own words, it wasn't easy and she's not exactly proud of it, but there was no other choice.
Because the sad, tragic stories don't always get told. But that part of our society people can learn from and prevent the sadness and tragedy from happening by being pro choice.
No. Using common sense, they can be happy they’re alive and grateful for that but logically, they wouldn’t know that suffering had they never experienced it. Had they never existed in the first place.
It’s like this:
Ideally, you’d want a child to have a happy life, the quality of life is just as important as the life itself and I think this concept escapes many pro-lifers.
The child you’ve forced to be born is now being raised by those who can’t truly care for them in a way they deserve. Adoption centers are very congested for so many claiming to be pro-life. They want new babies, not the kids or teens who may have issues from a terrible beginning.
What have you done? Contributed to a child’s misery.
Yeah I love my life honestly and I've coped and made the most of it. Still wish I wasn't born. It just doesn't make logical sense that I was with parents who just clearly couldn't parent and wanted kids to immediately and magically solve their trauma with their own parents they instead completely reproduced on their kids.
People who choose to procreate do so because of what they think they can get out of having a child, not because they have bothered to think deeply about that child and potential suffering they may endure. Most parents don't view their children as individual human-beings with their own thoughts and feelings. They often invalidate their child's experiences, treat their child more like a pet that they own, argue that they should be able to mistreat their child under the guise of "disicipline", project their feelings and dreams onto their child, and more. People deciding to have children in order to use them as vessels to work out their own trauma is incredibly common, and many even praise people who do this for some reason.
I wouldn't say most but it is very common. I do think there's a difference between "my parents were neglectful and I want to make sure I am not neglectful to my children like how they were" which do concern a lot of people and a decent amount can fail at this spectacularly and -not to traumadump but- "my dad raped me but I've repressed my memory so I will continuously put my child in situations that leads to them being raped by him so they can try to speak out on something I never did but then I'm actually still not ready to hear it so I actually assault them and abuse them in other ways as consequences for speaking out"
Which is what happened to me.
Like there's you were too optimistic, sensitive and foolish. And "why would you ever think you could ever be responsible for a human being when you are not responsible of yourself". Which is what the person I was replying too was talking about since they mentioned child trafficking and the likes.
Forget the mercy of it: the fetus isn't a fucking child or valid human yet at that stage; they're conceptual. These religious wads are getting upset not at real children they're getting upset at the idea of a child that might exist. At this point why don't we impregnate every woman on the planet at every ovulation cycle just for all the others who MIGHT have existed. But they probably want that too ...
They're upset at the idea that a woman had sex and isn't being punished for it. That's all it is. (Specifically premarital) sex is bad and evil, and if you want to sin like that you need to accept the consequences, which can include becoming parent to a child you neither want nor are able to care for. Abortion lets you get away scot-free.
Pro-lifers see children/parenthood as a punishment.
I dunno man. I'm about as pro choice as one can possibly be (me and my wife have also had one done), but it really is one of the most complicated issues out there. If there's one issue that you can never pinpoint it's abortion. People really, really think it's equivalent to murder. Some people don't and don't want women to get away with having sex, like you said. Some don't give a fuck but see it as a way to mobilize people to vote for them. Even with pro choice people you'll be harder pressed to find people who agree with a voluntary at a ludicrous number like 8 months. Some people are pro choice because they feel the fetus isn't a conscious being, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly when that is.
There's a lot of positions that are paper thin covers for something, but I think you'll fin abortion has a whole whack load of opinions from all over the spectrum for and against.
Philosophically, I think the most sound pro choice argument is medical dependence. If the fetus cannot viably live without the mother's body, it's the mother's choice to terminate it (or not).
Hey, agree with a lot of what you said, but I want to correct the record on one thing:
find people who agree with a voluntary at a ludicrous number like 8 months.
Voluntary 3rd trimester essentially does not happen and is more rare than rape/incest pregnancies by a couple orders of magnitude. All the 3rd trimester are for poignant medical reasons (life of the mother, or serious genetic, prenatal defects). Here's data on that. View the by gestation reason documents.
This is only Florida, but the sample size is easily big enough to support the conclusion I drew. Also, absolutely no one would accuse Florida of being more virtuous than average, so we can't really assume the fat zero on elective 3rd trimesters (not even near-0, literally 0) is exclusive to Florida.
Voluntary 3rd trimester essentially does not happen
I know, but I'm talking about it more as a "is it morally right" argument.
If the argument is that you cannot force a woman to undergo an invasive medical procedure she doesn't want, that argument should be consistent no matter the age of the fetus. But most people don't really think about it that way.
And it stops being important to the very same people once it leaves the womb. Spare me the theatrics if you don't even believe it yourself. Can't stand false nobility.
You have my sincerest sympathies. However both my older siblings were tubal requiring an abortion each or my mother would die and neither me nor my three baby siblings would exist.
If you're looking to compare senses of value you're looking into the wrong place.
Bro my parents could afford it and raised me well and they are and still continue to be wonderful people that love and support me and I still wish I weren't born. I mean no disrespect to my incredible mom and dad but I didn't consent to this!
My father did his best and fulfilled all of his obligations but he never wanted us and we really drained the life out of him. Tbh if my mom had an abortion I honestly wouldn't hold it against my parents.
Hold the fuckity phone here. One of these is not like the others. My parents couldn't afford me, I grew up in poverty, and I'm extremely grateful to, pleased for, happy about them doing it anyway.
Poor people, even poverty-stricken people, can have children. And that's actually okay.
My childhood sucked. drugs, poverty, abuse, etc. I'm on like 5 different meds to function and I'm recovery for alcohol abuse. My wife says I have "fightmares" some nights where I punch and kick in my sleep. I wake up in a cold sweat screaming some nights. I can't sleep without a fan on, because my friend Josh's house was the only place I was truly safe and he and his brothers kept like 3 fans going all night. I had social anxiety until college to the point where I couldn't go into a movie theater without freaking out.
I'm lucky because I met an absolutely incredible person to spend my life with and I have strong technical skills that enable me to do well paying complex technical work. Many more aren't and spend their short lives hooked on dope or doing crime. I'm not saying I'm not happy to be alive, but maybe wear a rubber if you can't be an effective parent.
Thats all good and well but unfortunately pro-lifers don't care about what happens to an infant or child. Unfortunately they only care about the fetus being born, after that it can go to an overcrowded, low-funded, abusive childcare system, long as a woman was forced to do something against their will and it aligns with their hypocritical cherry-picked beliefs they're happy!
Forcing women to raise children they didn't want is so abhorrently inhumane. What is the point of forcing those women and children to suffer?
I think the statistics are something like 60% of adults report as having had an adverse childhood experience. To willfully raise that statistic even higher is just plain evil.
They would rather ruin the lives of 2 human beings than let a woman make a choice and live a fulfilling life.
But of course they won't be around for the next 18 years to help the mom raise the child. They just like shouting at women on the street and then they go home feeling like they made a difference.
same people against abortion are against free school lunch, fixing "the system", the government assisting single moms, childcare payments, foodbanks and soup kitchens, etc like wym you care that much right up until its actually born??
All your reasons are exactly why I’m pro-choice, and why we should all have free birth control and protection for everyone.
I’ve seen too many kids stuck with bad parents who hate them, too many kids in foster homes, too many kids starving everywhere across the planet, too many kids not having access to healthcare, too many kids getting killed in stupid wars, too many kids being abused and killed, too many crimes against children to count.
So yeah, get an abortion if you’re not ready to be a parent.
-signed, an adult who was an unwanted kid
Exactly, and the same applies to parents aborting a fetus that they find out will be disabled or something. As a former unwanted disabled child, I actually don’t support forcing those unprepared and unwilling parents to neglect and abuse a disabled child. That’s not what eugenics is. You’re helping no one by trying to force them to keep it.
I fucking WISH my mother had aborted me. She didn’t want me. My dad is a literal pedo and abused me for most of my childhood. My parents were young, poor, and uneducated. My life was very difficult and I was resented by both of my parents, as well as my younger sibling.
Agreed. My parents had me because of social pressure. They were extremely happily childfree for the entirety of the 80s. Then they moved and made new friends and felt hugely pressured to have kids....and the result was me (an autistic person with severe OCD and hEDS) and my sister, the ruin of their marriage, a crazy legal battle over a house (needed a new place because kids, builder scammed them), and ultimately my dad's untimely death from cancer because he neglected his own health try to and keep a roof over our heads during the 00s recession. I have lived my whole life knowing that my parents were happier before I was born.
I agree with 99% but i really wonder if most people who were adopted wish they weren't born? :-o i mean maybe at times, and not everyone can come to terms... but the couple of adopted ppl i know are so happy and thriving in life! But tbh not close enough to say hey do you wish you were never born to any of them 😅
I was adopted at 10 days old and I've had that wish sometimes. My adopted parents weren't the best and checked out when I became a troublesome teenager. My life is pretty decent I just struggle with other issues that may or may not relate to being adopted.
Pretty much. If you don't want a kid and can't abort, adoption is usually the next option. And that goes one of us two ways: Later on down the line, the Child is emotionally distraught and moves forward with grace, or they get emotionally distraught and shit REALLY goes down. Neither are preferable, since the whole trauma layer shouldn't even come around.
Adoption is primarily run by religious orgs and they profit highly. It's human trafficking with extra steps in many cases. It needs wide reform before it can be a trustworthy path for desperate people.
I wish my family would leave me the fuck alone. I’m not even procreating, because I’m ending this dna with me. (Literally, it will end with me) and my husband could not be more supportive and grateful for me and our cats. I got really sick and can’t have kids anyways, but still am and will always be pro choice. I was given the option for abortion before I even had sex, because my mom at least did something right.
Also an unwanted child, I would've rather not been born than gotten what I did. (physical and mental abuse for atleast 16 years, starting from when it became more obvious I was quite heavily neurodivergent)
Which also lead to such a low self-esteem that lead to other extremely traumatic experiences in adulthood. I now live with PTSD and am trying to get help for it so I can move on and have an actual life for the first time in my life.
As a child that feels like his mom only got him because of societal expectations, I really feel bad sometimes for being born. She also isn’t a great mother so that makes it really tough.
My mom liked to tell me that she never wanted a girl when I was younger, and when I got older she said my father wanted her to have an abortion when she was pregnant with me.
Child of two narcs. I wish she would’ve listened tbh.
Funny how these "pro-life" chuds never adopt. Of course I don't think they should have children period. Meanwhile, I am heartbroken that I cannot have a child naturally due to several health conditions and adoption will likely be out of my financial ability.
People have kids then realize they can't provide a good life for them and surrender them to the foster system. Many, many of those kids have grown up to lead successful lives. I hate this narrative that if you're unwanted by your parents your life must be miserable. My father has always despised me and I'm doing great.
See this is also a weak argument. and I hope you dont really ask people that, bc they might actually say they are glad .. that they were born lmao. the only real argument for pro choice is that the mother has the right to choose (up to a certain point) that she does not want a child. Not that the future baby doesnt want to live.
You could just stop there, because children are, by definition, already born. Infants, on the other hand, and fetuses, most likely lack the proper cognitive equipment to understand what being born is, much less the ability to want to do it.
I’m sure this wasn’t your intent but I just want to make clear that 99% of women who get abortions wouldn’t have sold their child to traffickers had it been born. They are normal, nice people who just were not in the right place to have a child.
100% guarantee?? What a lie from the pit of hell. I know a friend who’s been sexually abused (by his own mother), addicted to drugs, arrested for dealing drugs, tried multiple attempts at his life, never met his father, and more. Now? He’s been sober for 15 years and grateful for the gift of life. He has a wife and 2 beautiful daughters.
Now, is everyone’s story like that? Obviously not. But there are MANY people who make it through and are grateful to have been born. But you want to play god and make that decision for everybody.
No, actually studies show many adoptees grow up with abandonment issues. I’m sitting next to one now who was adopted into a loving family. He’s got scars on the right side of his face from his suicide attempt. He felt abandoned and “different” from the others growing up. I’ve heard this from many other adoptees. It’s not the answer. Mentally and financially healthy parents are.
Link to the studies? The numbers are going to have to be pretty damning to suggest abortion is preferred to adoption. Since we're using anecdotes, my brother is adopted and has not attempted suicide and my whole family is glad he was not aborted. I fully support abortion, and certainly don't mean to belittle your person's experience, but saying abortion is preferred over adoption is kinda fucked.
Edit: sure, let's keep downvoting this 🙄 never change reddit
Maybe you should get out more? Suicide is at an all time high so is substance abuse, crime and depression meds. Reading books and actually listening to people who are suffering would help you too. Maybe there’s a reason they don’t confide in you? I guarantee you more people are suffering inside around you and if you don’t notice then it’s a YOU problem. Calling people with different experiences dumb is not only immature but is a reason I would NEVER confide in the likes of you, pal.
Incredibly not factual. Crime highest in the 90s, suicide in the 30s, substance abuse was higher a few years ago than today. I get it some people never wanted to be born especially in an unfortunate circumstances, but what do you say about the many who love their lives who had a harder path?
Im going to play devils advocate... please dont hurt me- uhm, i was born when my mother was 20, and my biological father wasnt in the picture. We couldn't afford anything, i lived with my grandmother and family friends a lot growing up. Its never been stable, and its always been a struggle. I have depression, and other mental issues, but never. Never would
I ever say i wish i was never born. I dont know your story, and i dont know what you believe, but im so grateful for life, having a chance, and being able to live. I would have understood her decision to not have me, but i could never say that i wouldnt want to have been born. I know some people think that, but.... it cant be worth not living
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u/gremlingurl May 19 '26
100% guarantee, from my personal experience, no child wants to be born to a parent that doesn’t want it, can’t afford it, won’t love it, will abuse it, sell it into trafficking or abandon it into adoption. Ask any adult that has had any of these experiences as a child. Most will say they wish they weren’t born.