1) Who is asking ANYONE else to do ANYTHING in regards to FREEDOM? All I am asking is for the ability, not the act itself. Believing it should remain legal does not mean I WANT one now, or even ever. I want to retain the right to have one, or at least I would if it were possible. That does not mean I am in any way opposed to measures that would decrease the reasons for wanting one in the first place.

2) You have yet to answer my challenges laid out in the above, and I trust you will when you fire that 18″ shell over my bow:
a) Pick a female family member, or very close aquaintance. She is raped, and it just so happens that it was at a very inopportune time, and she is pregnant.
b) Your wife is pregnant,but develops one of those crazy HOUSE style illnesses where only one is likely to survive the procedure.
c) Say you have a daughter at some point. And at 16, she got drunk and/or was subjected to subtances beyond her control. She is now pregnant, with no idea who the father may be.

The 3 above are my biggies. The pro-life movement has excluded me because I believe that some degree of choice is warranted in those situations. Being pro-choice in the above makes me inelligible for right-to-life cookies and merit badge…

I get the sense that there’s an underlying belief among a lot of people that it’s somehow better if those babies aren’t born. All too often, in my more radically pro-choice days, I heard people actually arguing that the babies themselves would be better off not being born, since their mother didn’t want them. Say what? Even if my mother hadn’t wanted me, I’d [darn] well rather be alive than dead, and so would pretty much everyone still walking the earth. Abortion is something done for the benefit of the mother, for which the child who will not be born pays the ultimate price. Trying to elide, sugarcoat, or invert this is morally bankrupt. It seems to me not only reasonable, but fundamentally right that society should force women to confront the tragic cost they are asking someone else (even if only a legally hypothetical someone) to pay for their freedom, and evaluate whether the benefit they are gaining is really worth that cost.

That very well captures my feelings on the issue. Abortion is, purely and simply, a selfish choice, no matter who is making it and when it’s done.

We decided to do the testing because we wanted information. I am not saying we would have ended the pregnancy if things were not so good, but at a minimum, we could begin to figure out what to do. We felt that we would NOT be prepared to deal with such things when it was too late to do anything/plan anything/figure out anything ahead of time.

Ultimately, it boils down to the words I told my wife when she was in her 8th month and we had to start figuring out the pain management plan and “in case of emergency” stuff: “We can always try again on the baby – I can’t get another chance at you.” This was to be the motto until the baby was actually born, in which case a decision was no longer necessary. It’s the reason I will NOT EVER allow my pregnant wife into a hospital that has a policy of child over mother.

Now I speak for myself, and not my wife: I do believe in mercy. I do not believe that God pays any more attention to me then anyone else, and I refuse to wait for God to intervene on anything, because, well, that is not how my God works. My God has my back, but isn’t dragging my sorry butt anywhere. So if faced with a decision regarding bringing a child into the world that would be “less then normal”, lots of things need to be considered, not the least of which being the affect on my current child and our ideas for how we want the future to be. Some birth defects can be dealt with, and in fact I passed along one that we are aware of (no drainage ducts) to my son, and he picked up one comepletely on his own (Hypospadia – urethra not centered – surgically corrected last year). He may yet develop my genetic disorder of lacking teeth enamel, though I hope not. In any event, those were not able to be known in advance, but even if they were, they do not create any burdens on our lives that we aren’t already dealing with. There are certain things that can be found that would change things forever, some of them currently without hope. All losses – whether natural or purposely planned – may require therapy to overcome. Pretending that people would be better off bringing into the world and then loosing teh child to a previously known entity is both cruel to the parents and to the child. In fact, not even taking into account the health of the child, a study (http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/rapidpdf/bmj.38623.532384.55v1 ) has now found that the risk of depression and other side effects are not increased by abortion, i.e those tendancies were already there before the pregnancy.
Mercy also means how you and yours will be affected by bringing a “less then perfect” child into the world. Say the kid would have Downs – something that CAN BE life shortening and IS very difficult to deal with and MAY cause extra stress and burdens on the child, it is still a struggle, because some people could say it would be worth it. Sure, many who are living it do. But I wonder how many would RECOMMEND their lifestyle, and the impacts on their other children, to others. Being “Worth It” and promoting are very different concepts. It was absolutely “Worth It” to live and work in Portland, OR, whilst my Fiance was in Pittsburgh, PA for a year. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, nor would I think I could do it again.

Finally, I am going to say something that Doug may have not considered: Ultrasounds DO fall under manipulation of “divine outcome” – you learned your child had all it’s fingers and toes, and so on. What if you learned it didn’t? I am not saying YOU would have changed your mind in any way, but someone else might have used that information differently. Sure, people can live and be perfectly productive without limbs, but how about those who never had them in the first place, and have mis-shapen exteriors instead? That is a tough life, and I challenge you to show me anyone who would recommend living it to someone who has the ability to determine the outcome.

Wow that was long winded…

We did no genetic testing. The only tests we participated in were ultrasounds, which hardly fall under the rubric of “genetic testing”.