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Banning abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, according to new research:
The Guttmacher Institute’s survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted.
It did note that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade.
But unsafe abortions, primarily illegal, have remained almost static….
Every year, an estimated 70,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortion – leaving nearly a quarter of a million children without a mother – and 5m develop complications.
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I heard on the BBC this morning that abortions are down world-wide (by 4 million per year) because of the increasing use of contraception in Africa, however illegal, backstreet abortions are UP.
HMMMMMM.
Yes, contraception is key here. If anti-choice people want to really impact abortion rates, then they need to get over their irrational fear of women actually enjoying their bodies and encourage medically responsible sex education in addition to supporting any organization that gets low cost or free contraception to women in need.
And they need to do something more than picket. It occurs to me that abortion might not even seem like a viable option if other options had more backing. There are too many children that are without a family in the world right now, and if assistance in raising the child or making sure they would go to a good home were options for everybody, some people might reconsider. And yes, contraception being available is obviously the most important option! That and sex education, which is not available everywhere either.
It always kills me that the pro-life group are so concerned with stopping abortion, but it is rare to see them helping care for the children after they have been born.
My Catholic mother, who has always been staunchly anti-abortion, has come to accept that contraception is a good way to reduce abortions. Regardless, she and my dad will probably be traveling to Washington DC in January for the Pro-Life March, where they will stage a protest that will be ignored by pretty much anyone who matters. (Fox News won’t count)
I had a heated discussion with her about why the movement continues to fail. Since Roe v Wade, what have the “pro-lifers” accomplished? One could argue that they have done jack squat. Contraception to most is unacceptable. Everyone knows that conception is highly unlikely when you don’t have sex. No duh. Yet they continue to push abstinence as the only solution to the abortion problem. Their biggest problem is that they are completely uncompromising. To them, abortion is a black and white issue, whilst pro-choice advocates honestly tend to see it as a gray area. The fact of the matter is that the concept of life beginning at the moment of conception is a theological answer and that the government cannot answer such a question. Yet this is the tactic that they use, as if it will make a difference.
Here in StL, they just end up forming human chains leading to the Planned Parenthood offices and harassing the women who have the right to make their own private choices.
“f you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re pre-schooled, you’re fucked. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life, these people aren’t pro-life, they’re killing doctors, what kind of pro-life is that? What, they’ll do everything they can do save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?”
~G. Carlin
Ah, George Carlin, how we miss you.
He had a quote for absolutely everything.
And if there is a god, may he strike this audience dead.
Beautiful George Carlin quote!
@arrakis, that is my point, pro-life does less to curb abortion than pro-choice does. Just ridiculous. Also, I am happy to meet someone else who lives the STL.
-> “IN the STL”. Me thinks I will just walk away and go happily lunching now.
And if the fetus grows up to be a woman, it just might be forced to be a walking incubator as “punishment” for having sexual intercourse.
If abortions are outlawed, only outlaws will have abortions.
No fair using contraceptives; the ones wanting abortions outlawed want women in their place, not to protect “life”. Doctors and women are life-forms too.
The whole pro-life debate never made sense to me, mostly because those pushing it are against welfare, a system that supports many uneducated single mothers who couldn’t work b/c they had children at a young age or have some problem that prevents them from raising their children on their own responsibly. These people want to ruin other people’s lives but not shoulder any of the burden resulting from that decision (housing, medical care, child care, education, etc).
Their response would be “if we can’t protect the most helpless members of our society, we’ll fail at helping anyone else.”
But not funding social programs IS failing to support them.
Sorry, meant to say “protect them”
Not to mention that they are also (usually) pro-abstinence only education, pro-war, pro-death penalty, and anti-public education. It’s almost like they intentionally take the cruelest possible political positions.
Poor uneducated people are easier to manipulate and control.
Their POV is that if you had sex, tough titty, it’s your problem, you’ve to take care of the kid.
A friend of mine worked for the Peace Corps in the Carribbean, providing sex education to women. The problem, she said, is that in many societies, the women have no choice about using condoms because it is such a male dominated society. Nor can they say no to their husbands who want to have sex. Nor do they have the money for contraceptives. The best birth control method for these societies is fertility beads – you count one bead for each day of your cycle, and the color of the bead tells you when you are likely to get pregnant. That way when they are most fertile, if the women don’t want to get pregnant, they know to hide from the men! Sounds crazy, but apparently it is working very well.
Want to reduce abortion?
Simple. Make adoption easier.
Including adoption by gay couples.
Not sure I see this as a way to reduce abortions. There is a long waiting list of people who want to adopt US-born babies, and lots of people go to other countries to adopt babies because there isn’t enough US supply.
I hate to call you on it because you seem like a nice guy, but from what I’m reading that’s bullshit. People in the US who want to adopt generally only want to adopt a little blond-haired, blue-eyed Child of The Corn type infant. There aren’t enough Arian babies to meet demand, it’s true. There’s a whole lot of little brown babies without parents, though.
Exactly.
Preference is for white girls, preferarbly babies, who have never been abused and in good health; also without siblings. If it’s an older child or a child with a disability, or even a child who has siblings (child abuse cases, I suppose), it’s harder for them to get adopted. At least, that’s what happens in my piece of world (not US).
This is true for the US, as well.
Last I heard, the entire backlog of waiting adoptive parents in the U.S. could be filled by four months’ worth of abortions. And then what? But you’re missing the point. What gives YOU the right to tell ME I have to undergo pregnancy and childbirth? I guess by your name that no one is ever going to tell you that it’s YOUR turn to be someone else’s baby factory.
As legal abortion has gotten safer, moving from D&C to vacuum aspiration and pills, childbirth is 13 times more likely to kill the pregnant woman. Therefore, you are forcing her to risk her life. Hello? Isn’t this against some kind of legal principle? If your right to wave your arms ends with my nose, then your right to impose your morals ends with my body, wellbeing, and life.
But why make adoption ‘easier’? The rules and laws are very good, and tight – making sure no dodgy couple get a child.
Why can I never remember when the ethereal soul is injected into the zygote? There should be a Wikipedia entry for that.
Well, it’s because it’s unclear. Especially in cases of identical twins (who would presumably have half a soul if ensoulment happens at conception) or chimeras (when fraternal twins merge into one person who would presumably have two souls).
Soulwise, these are trying times.
That’s a great point; I’ll try to bring that up in my next apologetics debate without bursting into hysterical tears.
It only gets twistier from there. The obvious counterargument is that God has foreknowledge of identical twins, hence any zygote destined for twinning is provided two souls. But then, if God has pre-knowledge of twinning (which is the only way the ‘life at conception’ thing can work without producing fractional souled freaks), then he also has pre-knowledge of all fetuses bound to be aborted, in which case it is logical he has provided zero souls for such cases. After all, God abhors the destruction of God’s children, and there is no easier way to insure it doesn’t happen. In which case, abortion isn’t such a big deal, theologically speaking, after all.
Could it not also be logically argued that god will still provide a soul but as the foetus is sinless and hasn’t had the opportunity to receive the saviour of Jesus, they will therefore get a free pass straight into heaven?
Sure. Either the little fetal tykes are spiritual vegetables, or they are sinless and get the straight ticket to heaven. Either way, no harm. Thus, no foul.
I think I prefer your answer as why not extend it to up to the period at which a child can accept Jesus as their saviour and be saved — surely god wouldn’t bother giving them a soul right up until that point, let’s say four years old?
The soul appears with the person at the moment of conception, making him a complete human being from this moment. Obviously. (And for identical twins, they have to split a soul)
Banning abortion kills women. Your fairy tales about your imaginary sky-daddy kill women. Get it?
No such thing as a “sky-daddy” at least not in Christianity (the truth). Christ didnt teach or model a God up in the sky, rather quite the opposite.
Christ IN you is the mystery of the ages…
Well, try this then:
Your fairy tales about your imaginary indwelling Christ kill women.
—————
It doesn’t seem to make it any better, John.
It’s really, “The earthly, power-hungry, woman-controlling church hierarchy uses its myths and assumptions, interpretations and dogmas to justify laws that kill women.” Christ said nothing about abortion. He did, however, say a lot about rich people not getting into heaven. Maybe wealth should be illegal to protect the souls of the would-be rich who, after all, are just out enjoying themselves.
There’s also evidence that access to abortion has salutary effects on society. Freakonomics (blog) discussed it.
Wondering if you can help me?
I need one consequence of abortion to complete my list of 3. I’m doing a talk on the issue of Abortion, and have decided on the topic: THB Abortion is a Woman’s Right.
So far, I have 2 (fairly) solid reasons, which can be developed:
1. Outlawing abortions lead to ‘backstreet’ or illegal abortions, which harm the mother/child
2. Keeping the child could be a risk to the mother’s health (and likewise for the other way around)
3. ?
Any suggestion would be appreciated!
I’d guess forcing women who would rather abort to have children could lead to abandonment or child abuse of said child. There have been several cases in my country where women abandon newborn children in trashcans, alleys or even throw them in rivers and lakes. Some of them just let the child starve to death.
I’d add that control over one’s own body is the foundational principle for many other political and social rights. Banning abortion deprives women of that control in a very important context.
Do you know that last year Britain had its first death due to an abortion in over twenty years? The woman was an African migrant who didn’t know that it’s perfectly legal here and went to another woman who grew up in the same village for a back-street termination. Sad.
Thank you, both your comments were extremely helpful.
Siberia – is that the case of ‘every child a wanted child’ – emotionally deprived children when women are forced to carry their pregnancies to term? Is there a strong statistic of women who actually abandon/kill their child?
Elemonope – does that carry on with the fact that women have wanted political and social equality for years, and one of the biggest issue of Women In Politics is that mothercare is slowing them down? But actually, women in politics doesn’t occur in many countries, and usually these are the ones who would ban abortion (corrupt government?)
Well anyway, thank you. I need to pick one!
I can’t say if there is any statistics, nor that all unplanned children are unwanted; but I’d guess a woman who does not want a pregnancy, so much that she’d rather terminate, probably would not be very interested in it.
There is the economic factor: women who have no condition to afford more children. I’ve seen several cases – some in my own family! – when a poverty-stricken woman was knocked up by her husband/boyfriend (who then promptly took off) and were forced to give the child away (abortion is illegal over here, btw, though of course they might not have chosen to abort). Some of these children find good homes, some don’t. Some just grow up in orphanages.
Or some end in trashcans or rivers.
Forced childbearing often means an end to academic or vocational training for the woman, thus dumbing-down the whole society.
Forced childbearing takes women out of the workforce. For families living month to month, often in the type of jobs that have no sick leave whatsoever, an unwanted child can bring financial devastation. A large percentage of stay-at-home moms stay home with the kids simply because they can’t find a job that pays enough to let them afford child care.
Forced childbearing destroys families. Sometimes this happens even before the family has a chance to form- think of the number of young men who simply disappear when they learn their girlfriend is pregnant. Unwanted pregnancies often weaken the bond between parents and the child who is the unwilling parent. Grandmothers on a low or fixed income too often end up being the child’s primary care provider.
Not long ago in American history we had large orphanages full of unwanted children. A similar situation prevailed in Romania. I suggest you add a little historical research into your arguments, so your audience has a taste of what the no-abortion scenario really looks like in practice.
and custador, this blank space below is my minute of silence for that woman.
*
*
Thank you nazani – I now have my 3rd point. I really don’t have much idea to go about this. When you say use historical research to give my audience a taste of what the no-abortion scenario really looks like in practice, what do you mean?
This blog article links to some real-world results of an abortion ban>/a>.
I would recommend, for an ending, Women should get to choose because ultimately, they should decide if their foetus is life or if it is not. Pro-lifers and anti-abortionists can aruge all they want, but they have no right to be impressing their opinions on others. The mother is the central matter in abortions – why should anyone else have control over her body and her life?
If you think of women as 2nd and 3rd class citizens their position begins to make sense.
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