Is abortion the same as murder?

When I took Mr. Satoru Ito(he is a professor of Religious Beliefs)'s class last year, he said that in the law, a baby is considered as a human being when his/her head is half out of the mother's body. From this point of view, abortion is not a murder as all of the body of the baby is still inside the mother. But thinking of losing a possibility of one life, I cannot strongly disagree that abortion is not same as murder.

National Abortion Federation

・The name of the group.
National Abortion Federation
・The specific issue the group deals with.
Abortion
・The group's mission statement and Goals that the group strives to achieve.
It is to ensure safe, legal and accessible abortion cae to promote health and justice for woman.
・Concrete ways that the NGO tries to achieve its goals.
Holding interns such as clinic defence intern, communications intern, public policy intern and training and education intern.
・How the group is different from others in its goals or methods?
・Groups with which it networks (i.e., cooperates with on projects or activities).
・How does the group keep itself running (i.e., by fund-raisning activities, donations, etc.)?
・If the group does fund-raising activities, please describe them.
They ask for donation on their home page.
・How does it recruit new members to the group?
You can request to be a member from the home page by filling in a form.
・How does it make the media interested in its activities?
・What's your overall impression of the group? Is it a group that you would ever consider joining?
I thought this group is a very active group but I don't know if I would ever consider joining because abortion is a problem that needs scientific knowledge to work on.

According to research

i made survey sheet using general questions written by sayuri, so you can answer here.(http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=igCc1KyAdcWD8y7faaeERA_3d_3d)

i searched about countries where abortion is legal. You can see here. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/AbortionLawsMap.png)

i thought that the restriction of abortion is vague. In Japan(and some countries) it's regarded as legal in some cases,but how can we define it's legal or not? In Japan, the legal aborton is called 'therapeutic abortion'.(one of the ways of abortion to save mother from health problem) According to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 276,352 numbers of abortion were used in Japan, in 2006. Then, are all of these abortions because of mothers' health problem? i don't think so. i feel a clear regulation is very necessary.

How much does it cost to have abortion in Japan?

There is a difference in cost needed to have abortion depending on the weeks of pregnancy because the treatment will be different.
According to Kanda Sanfujinka Hospital site, if mother was...

1. 5~11weeks pregnant
cost: 85,000 yen
hospitalized: no need to stay. Can go home in 2~3 hours.

2. 12~15 weeks pregnant
cost: 240,000 yen
hospitalized: need to stay 1 night.

3. 16~19 weeks pregnant
cost: 380,000 yen
hospitalized: need to stay 1 night.

4. 20~21 weeks pregnant
need to be considered to have surgery.

5. 22 weeks pregnant or more weeks pregnant
impossible to have surgery.

Questions we'll try to answer.

I'll list up questions below that was given ideas by Mr. Dias and our classmates as it might make us easier to answer.

Questions about specific facts
・In which countries is abortion legal?
・When were abortions first performed?
・Did countries make abortion illegal for similar reasons?
・What is the estimate for the number of illegal abortions performed in countries like the Philippines, where abortion is against the law?
・What are the risks involved in illegal abortions compared with legal ones?
・Does abortion affect the mother's body (mother's health)?
・How much does it cost to have abortion in Japan?

General questions that don't necessarily have clear or easy answers
・Is abortion the same as murder?
・Should a woman who gets an illegal abortion be fined or sent to jail?
・Should it be necessary for the man who got a woman pregnant to give consent for an abortion?
・Should minors have to get consent from their parents before an abortion is carried out?
・Abortion = taking away the baby's life.What is life? Is there any law that states what a life is?
・Is there any connection between the thought of abortion and baby post( akachan post)? If so, what are the reasons for such thought to be hold?
・Why some women want to have abortion?
・Does the general idea of abortion differ between religion?

What do u think

I learned from Sayuri's research that abortion means not just to kill the embryo but to give birth to baby except the time is not right. Then, if babies are born early, is it possible for them to live without having any handicap?

Looking up OED

I looked up the word "abortion" in OED. It said:

1. The act of giving untimely birth to offspring, premature delivery, miscarriage; the procuring of premature delivery so as to destroy offspring.

From this, I learnt that "abortion" means not just to kill the embryo but to give birth to baby except the time is not right. Also I found that the word "abort(noun)" has meaning of "to fail", which was a new idea to me. Because I thought abortion is done only on purpose.

Pro-life side

What do you think when you see these pictures?

These are embryo. They are really tiny. But they are surelly alive. And there are surelly
one life in mother's womb.

Can you decide to kill them after you see these pictures?

If I got pregnant, maybe, I would want to give birth to my baby. Even if I was too young, like junior high school or high school student.......

So, I can understand the idea of "pro-life." But, I'm not sure that I can take the "pro-life" side if my pregnancy is accidential, like rape.

How the baby is feeling?

I don't wanna die~(;Д;)

What do you think the baby is thinking?

Abortion Methods

There are mainly 3 ways of abortion.
1. Kill the child by a instrument entering the uterus
2. Kill the child by taking drugs
3. Kill the child by the surgery(similar to 1?)
Here, I deliberately used the phrase ''Kill the child'' because abortion is considered as murder in one side of view. However, I learnt in the law, a baby is concerned as a human being when his/her head is half out of his/her mother. So, abortion is actually not murder. But it is true that it is an act of making one life dissapear. Also having the abortion surgery may damage the uterus of the mother.
View this site to know more about the methods of abortion and the baby growing inside mother.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/abortiontypes/

Pro-choice side

Take a look at this photo. This is embryo, 8 weeks baby.

Why can you say this's not human being?

I have been Pro-choice side, but i wonder if i could use abortion if actually i got pregmant without expectation.

In my opinion, if the pregnancy is accidential one such as rape, contraceptional failure etc, abortion should be used.

Besides, if the couple were still junior high school students or high school student, it would be impossible for them to earn money to raise thier child on their own. If abortion is not accepted in any cases, women who want to use abortion would be forced to endure the misery of unwanted pregnancy, and incredible burdens of child raising.

You can get a lot of information through this HP.

http://www.abortionfacts.com/

However, i can't make up my mind if i look at this photo.

Even if it's embryo, it shapes clearly "human being"...

What's your opinion?

Should abortion be used, or not?
First of all, from what point can we think of abortion?

There are 2 sides in discussing abortion.
One is "Pro-life" side, and the other is "Pro-choice" side. The former means abortion should NOT used because it's kind of murder. The latter means abortion should be used if it's unwanted pregnancy(rape, contraceptive failure etc).
There are 2 important words when we define the term of "baby". They're "embryo" and "fetus".
Embryo means an animal or human that has not yet been born, and has just begun to develop, under 8 weeks after fetilization.
Fetus means a young human or animal before birth, after 9 weeks since the mother got pregnant.


Considering these definition of baby, do you think abortion should be accepted, or not?

Who do you guess has the right to decide what should do if you really get pregnant without expectation?

State your opinion! I'm gonna write soon.

Abortion in Japan

Recentry, abortion have become serious issue, especialy among young people. It is important to think about it because, perhaps,we will be faced with the problem whether abort our unborn babies or not, in the future.

First of all, I wanted to know recent abortion in Japan. Then, I found the fact that 276,352 artificial abortion were taken in Japan in 2006, and the ratio of the number of the abortions for birth 100 is 25.3 cases. I was surprised because I didn't know so many abortion were taken during a year in Japan. If you want to know more about abortion of Japan, please check it.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E5%B7%A5%E5%A6%8A%E5%A8%A0%E4%B8%AD%E7%B5%B6
Is this number too many?

characters

couple(mother,father,)
parents
baby
doctor