Ruby,

Respectfully, your quote about 22 days gestation and hearing a heart beat is widely disputed. Most experts would give eight weeks as an early estimate.

I hesitate to dispute the number of days however. The minute you start this sort of a discussion you are negating what a woman feels is right for her. And since a pregnancy is happening to a woman's body and affecting her life it shouldn't be anyone's business but hers.

How in the world can we be HERE, 2022, and still thinking it's ok to force a woman to give up what she wants for her own life.

Most women who have abortions already have other children. Most women who chose abortion are living in poverty. Do you think it's okay to force a woman to place a higher value on an unborn child than the children she already has?

Human beings have sex. Sometimes the decision to have sex is made with the idea that a pregnancy won't happen and then it does. I think that is a horrible criteria for bringing a child into the world.

I believe in family planning. That is how I've approached motherhood. Lucky for me, the times I took a chance and had sex when I knew my choice of birth control might not work, I didn't get pregnant. If I had, I would have aborted the fetus. I would not have felt I was doing anything wrong.

One in every three women has had an abortion. Almost every friend I have has had an abortion. None of the women I know who are open about having had an abortion feels regret. Each of them feels like it was the right thing to do for themselves (and their existing families, their future etc) at that specific point in their life.

As for adoption....I'm not comfortable forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term to provide a baby for someone else when she doesn't feel that is a safe ( or smart or logical)choice for herself. Bear in mind, even with Roe v Wade in place you were still able to adopt your children. Abortion is not a choice that every pregnant woman makes.

A ban on abortion ignores a womans autonomy over her own body.