Objective Book about Abortion?

Any recommendations?

Something that gives a cold, clinical description of the procedure. That's probably the only objective thing you'll find on the subject.

It's a medical textbook. Gives the facts about pregnancy.

makes as much sense as a right winger recommending the bible. There are no objective books because it is not possible to have objective views re.

Yeah, that's a great argument, except for the part where it doesn't make a damn bit of sense. If someone wishes to know the facts of pregnancy and abortion (spontaneous or induced), a medical textbook is the place to go.

If one wants to know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or whether a soul exists and if so, when does it enter a fetus, then your argument might make sense.

sound just like the right wingers i argue with day in and day out. i constantly accuse them of seeing the world in black and white and not exploring the gray areas. your comment does not apply in the real world. the vast majority of people on the side of maintaining a womens right to choose do not see it as simply a sterile medical procedure. if you do not explore the reasons behind the devisive nature of this issue, you are adding as much as the young male republicans i seem to see so many of on the thug lines blocking clinics.

thank you for the insightful discussion.

Want to know what an abortion is? Look it up in a medical text, which takes no sides with issue to rightness or wrongness. Want to know what a pregnancy does to a woman's body? Look it up in a medical text, which has no interest in preaching morality.

You speak for the vast majority of people on the side of reproductive rights, yet your profile says you are a male. I find this odd. I do not need to "explore' anything with lunatics who think terrorism is a good way to get their point across. Abortion is what it is. Everyone gets to make up their own mind as to what it means to them. I'm very sorry for you if you value a precious preborn poppet more than you do a woman, but there's not much I can do about it, and I think you have the right to your feelings. You just don't have the right to mandate that everyone else have your feelings.

By the way, saying that I sound "just like" a right-winger is a pretty lame tactic. It shows that you feel threatened or fear you have already lost the argument - which you did, by the way.

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I'm going to try to say this in a way you might understand: for the facts about abortion, one should go to a medical text. For speculation about morality, souls, etc, one will not be able to find anything objective. If one wants to know what constitutes a pregnancy, what a zygote/embryo/fetus does to a woman's body, and the different stages of z/e/f development, one can go to a medicl textbook and get facts that one can have opinions about.

Nice dodge about claiming to speak for the majority of those who favor reproductive rights. You don't. You made a mistake with your original argument, and this dancing around and waving the bloody shirt of being a minority does not distract from initial logical blunder but only compounds it.

you assume that everyone is less intelligent than you are. you assume the person asking the question does not know that a medical procedure is being performed on the person that enters the clinic. you insult the intelligence of someone trying to discuss the subject in a way that does not conform to your view. you make a mistake in thinking everyone you argue with is the same as your brother or ex-boyfriend. half or nearly half of the country does not even support a womans right to choose. of those that do, many (i think most) do not simply see it as another medical procedure, as you do. you made a mistake in your original post by identifying yourself as an arrogant and self centered individual that does not wish to discuss an issue.

i do not claim to speak for the majority. what i do claim is that your views on this subject are not in it. you have distilled a complicated issue for millions of people into a simple one, and dismissed those that disagree as less than you. waving the bloody shirt of your gender does not distract from your initial prejudice, only compounds it.

just out of curiosity, who are the lunatics you refer to in your first post? did anyone here advocate terrorism? do you really feel that gender precludes discussion of this topic? if so, do you apply this type of judgement in other issues? what would your advice or reaction be to a woman that experienced emotional and/or mental anguish or misgivings after an abortion be? suck it up, it is just a medical procedure?

once again, thank you for the time you are spending in responding to the discussion

One would be hard pressed to find any book on the subject of abortion that doesn't have a specific bias toward one side or the other on the issue of abortion. That's not academic elitism, it's a fact.

that the individual that started the thread is not aware of the fact that abortion is a medical procedure? the elitism i speak of is the belittling manner of response, the immediate statement that i am a male, and thus, cannot possibly understand, the disguise attacks. i do not understand how someone could argue so vehemently with someone that supports this right, simply because i don't see it as a sterile black and white issue.

incidentally, if you read my original response, it was made under the assumtption that the poster was intelligent enough to know that abortions are medical procedures. this isn't what makes abortion a devisive issue. do you think abortion opponents do not consider abortion a medical procedure? the abortion debate centers around much more complex arguments, such as when life or consiousness actually begins. as i stated originally, there are no objective books on these subjects.

thank you for your response. if you did not do so, please read the entire discussion in the future.

the fact that the moral dimension of the abortion argument is invariably subjective is the reason I, in addition to the poster you've been inundating with inanities, suggested a medical textbook. Facts are objective. Not subjective. The facts of pregnancy and the procedures for termination of same remain unchanged, whatever one's views on abortion. They may not be disputed. And those facts are to be found in medical texts. Perhaps the only source of truly objective information on the subject, being free of value judgements and questions of a moral, religious, or spiritual nature. I suggest you purchase a dictionary and look up the definition of the words "objective" and "subjective", as they seem to be giving you trouble. It would seem that you're just looking to pick a fight (or perhaps you're exceptionally obtuse).

i do not claim to speak for the majority.

Then why did you write this?

the vast majority of people on the side of maintaining a womens right to choose do not see it as simply a sterile medical procedure.

You claim that you're part of the "vast majority" who support repriductive rights. I was not disputing that you have a right to your opinion - you'll note I never said men shouldn't have opinions on abortion - I just pointed out that a) you don't speak for the majority and b) men are not the majority of those who support reproductive rights. You read something into it that wasn't there. Amusing, but pointless. You're a little too ready to be right without taking the time to see what the argument is about. Which is: there are facts about abortion, and they can be found in medical textbooks. The ethical, moral and religious aspect of the debate cannot, by definition, be factual, and therefore no objective books on the subject can exist.

As for any supposed "emotional and/or mental anguish" (and what is the difference between emotional and medical anguish) that any woman mught experience after an abortion - what's your point? Do you say that such happens? Can you back that with studies? Most women who have an elective abortion feel relief, and I can back that up' let's start with the Koop Study that found abandoning a child for adoption caused a great deal of anguish, while those who had abortions had little or no anguish or any other negative emotional sequelae.

Sounds like you write one thing when you mean another. Then again, all of your knee-jerk over-the-top posts on this subject seem to illustrate your difficulty with the written medium. I am flattered that you try to emulate my writing style, as plagarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

Sigh, indeed.

what do you mean? is this an effort on your part to unite dems? i feel the unity.

Do you mean objective in the medical sense of "this is how abortion is done," or in explaining the political and moral issues of both sides?

I doubt there are any. And who decides what is "objective"?

My only advice is to read books that take both sides of the issue and find what "truth" you can believe in the end. It's really a matter personal opinion in the end, anyway. If you just want the facts, a medical textbook, and maybe some statistics, is all you need. I know it took quite a bit of time and googling just to get the unvarnished facts and statistics about so-called "partial birth" abortions, it was cluttered with obviously biased text both ways.

By Jeffrey Archer. This was actually Michael Crichton when he was still an intern, I believe. Written before Roe v Wade, it has a fantastic essay afterwords that discusses the various arguments for and against in an objective fashion.

It helped me finally come to grips with this issue and fall on the pro-choice side, but it's not pro-choice or pro-life that I remember. At least not strongly.