Originally Posted by djplong

The flip side is that the vast majority of abortions are done in the first trimester when the fetus can resemble anything from a pinprick to a chicken embryo.

The *real* controversies start coming when you get to viability. And science has been pushing THAT window further and further up the calendar over the years. (Not to mention the price tag that goes with those earliest of preemie neonatal care expenses).

I've known a couple of people who've had abortions and was in the room for one myself. I might take some small issue with how wide your definition of "convenience" might go - in our case there were considerable risks that my (now ex) wife didn't want to face as she'd exposed the at-the-time-unknown days-old zygote to a lot of radiation (x-rays) because we didn't know that her birth control had failed.

But it's undeniable that, for so many, an abortion is the "easier" way out.

But for a different perspective - I'd read a statistic that, in the USSR, back in the 70s and 80s, it wasn't uncommon to be able to find a woman who could have had up to 2 dozen abortions since that was considered "just another contraceptive" back then.

Can you imagine the outcry if we'd found someone like that in THIS country? Even the pro-choicers would be ticked off for having someone make them look that irresponsible.