Every Saturday Morning
Every Saturday Morning is a blog written by a woman who escorts at an abortion clinic. Especially for the Canadians on my list (it's a much more quiet debate here), it can be easy to forget the hurdles placed in the way of women trying to have control over their own bodies
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I'd amend that to be, when it's born, we won't care about them anymore. We cross-posted our comments; you posted this one while I was posting my response to lordindra above, but I went into a good deal of detail about the lack of help that anti-choice types offer post-birth.
If never understood why children are cherished more than adults. To my knowledge it's adults who keep society and mankind going. Plus, a child can end up growing up into a useless leech on society.
There we're getting into a whole 'nother issue, part of which is that in First World nations we've developed this culture that reinforces that children should be the center of things rather than just part of daily life. In some ways this is good, but in some ways this is bad. Any creatures that en-masse don't treat their children well are going to wind up with a whole lot less children (as in nature; most babies don't survive) and to support the lifestyle we've created in First World countries, we *need* a great deal of children growing up as the next workforce. (As an example, look at Japan right now; the birth rate is nowhere near where it needs to be, and it's causing a crisis.)
But I don't believe children should automatically be welcomed everywhere, either. They're not kings and queens simply by dint of their age. It's okay to have adult-only communities and events. If my child is acting up in a restaurant, it's my responsibility to remove him from the situation, not to just shrug my shoulders and let him run around the restaurant on his own.
The way I see it, it's okay to give children a high enough priority that their needs take precedence (I think children should be given seats on public transit rather than able-bodied teens and adults; and if food is scarce, the kids should eat first), but it's not okay to give them such a high priority that their *wants* take precedence over everyone else's.
Does a child have potential? Maybe. Must most likely they'll just grow up average or mediocre.
I always liked Henry Morgentaler's response to the "but the baby you're aborting might be the next Einstein!": as he put it, "Yeah, and it might also be the next Hitler."
Most kids aren't going to grow up as more than mediocre, but that's okay. The world needs a good deal of mediocre people to keep things going and create a stage for the more-than-mediocre to shine. :) But yeah, don't argue greatness as a reason against abortion, because that's just ridiculous.
The world can't sustain many more people. Humans will breed themselves to death.
The world can actually sustain more people; what's unsustainable is the current rate of consumption. The world can't sustain a lot more people who have the carbon footprint of many people in the developed nations. But it's a bit of a moot point since the birth rate in developed nations tends to be at or below maintenance level; for example, in Canada, our birth rate is too low to maintain our current population, so we make up the shortfall with immigration (who then adapt to our habits and their carbon footprint increases).
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