Abortion

[gnome]

Again, I'm not defining abortions as a result of inconvenience, I'm defining a specific reason, out of many reasons, abortions happen- one of which is "inconvenience." I would rather be "inconvenienced" with the burden of raising my child than I would being restricted from protecting my child. I'm sorry but if adoption was chosen over abortion in the event of an inconvenient pregnancy, there would be far less abortions.

Most people would happily support (or at least, not object to) any initiative to convince women to choose adoption over abortion. But the question of "inconvenience" vs. "need" is not easily decided by someone other than the mother. But, it doesn't matter, IMO, because it is more effective (i.e., more abortions prevented) to convince than to try to legally force in any case.

 

[chris epic]

Right, but i was asking about an unwanted pregnancy. What if she doesn't want to be pregnant?

if she doesn't want to be pregnant and the biological father isn't around, and she doesn't want to give the child up for adoption there's really nothing I can say against that, its her legal right to make that decision. This thread prouted off a fathers' Rights thread- I created the Abortion thread because over in the "Roe v Wade for Men" thread, we started arguing about the humanity and personhood of a fetus- therefore I felt like we were getting off topic. One more time: I respect that women are able to have that choice as legislated by the Supreme Court. Do I agree with abortion? In some cases no and in some cases yes. And I especially don't agree with abortion if the father wants the child. But the abortion practiced today is not the abortion that Roe v Wade implemented thirty years ago anyway and I don't think too many people are aware of that- but the philosophical interpretation of the amendments that back them up and the circumstances which justify them are so ambiguous anymore its rediculous.

Meg's reply confirms my suspicions.

Which are?

If it were just a matter of an unwanted child, it's one thing. But ALL pregnancies affect the mother's health. Some more than others.

Of coarse they do, from morning sickness and hormone dynamics to psychosis and sometimes even death and in the extreme circumstances of permanent physical damage or death I could see that as a good reason to terminate a pregnancy- but "health" is another one of those penumbras- "health" can be psychological health which can be defined as in terms of mental stress and anxiety which can be reason alone to terminate a pregnancy as pertaining to the health of the mother.

Pregnancy itself is more than an inconvenience.

I am not saying that pregnancy is an inconvenience, why do you keep thinking that that is what I'm saying? I'm saying that a large part of the reasons that a woman gets an abortion is because she feels that having that child will inconvenience her life and I feel that even the statistics that meg introduced to the thread is evidence to support that.

 

[chris epic]

"Most women (89%) cited two or more reasons. 72% cited three or more."

The average woman surveyed cited 3.7 reasons.

I think it's important to note that.

Meg, there are 7 statistics that you give before you give the percentages of the number of reasons listed. Of those 7, 5 indicate some sort of inconvenience: having the child, as challenging as it would be, would still be possible without a great risk of physical detriment. I mean, let’s face it, (no I don’t know from experience, but I was a child once) its no picnic weather you’re “ready and willing” or not. Therefore, statistically- if the majority cited an average of almost 4 of those reasons “chances are” the majority of those 3.7 reasons were from the 5 that identified some sort of inconvenience not detrimental to the health of the mother or the fetus, that’s why I didn’t feel the need to reiterate that, all someone has to do is go back to your original post and do the math.

 

[Abbyas]

Chris, the reason I keep pointing that out is because a willing father would not alone solve the problem. If that were true, all of the individuals who cited reasons why they did not want a child (not mentioning pregnancy) could simply give up children for adoption, white parents anyway.
Problem solved.

But there are other aspects to consider. Not one of the listed options was "I don't want to be pregnant." Not one was "I don't want to throw up, gain weight, avoid medications, go through mood swings, etc, etc."

Both of the above reasons makes me think that the longer answer is, "I don't want a child, and I don't want to go through a pregnancy and give it to someone else."

Abortion is not easy. It is painful and requires recovery time. For those who choose to have one, pregnancy is worse.

The reason I keep harping on the issue is that I don't think your proposition (a willing father) solves the problem that an abortion does.

 

[meg]

I wish you would read the full report that I linked to, Chris. Here's one part (all typos are mine - can't cut and paste from a pdf file):

Number of reasons given. Of the 1,160 women who gave at least one reason, 89% gave at least two and 72% gave at least three; the median number of reasons given was four, and some women gave as many as eight reasons out of a possible 13 (not shown). Among women who gave at least two reasons, the most common pairs of reasons were inability to afford a baby and fear of single motherhood or relationship problems; and inability to afford a baby and having completed childbearing or having other people dependent on them.

In-depth interview respondents gave an average of five reasons (range 1-10) for why they were ending their pregnancy. However, women's responses often did not fit the categories of the structured survey; the reasons tended to overlap between the domains of unplanned pregnancy, financial instability, unemployment, single motherhood and current parenting responsibilities. For example, one 25-year-old woman, separated from her husband said:
"Neither one of us are really economically prepared. For myself, I've been out of work for almost two years now, I just started, you know, receiving benefits from DSS and stuff. And with my youngest child being three years old, and me... constantly applying for jobs for a while now,... if I got a job, I'm going to have to go on maternity leave. And with [the father]... let's just say, with four children, I don't think he needs another one." - Mother of two, below the povery line

Like Abbyas, I'm not too fond of the term "inconvenient" used as a descriptor of why women choose to abort, either.

It is inconvenient when my cell phone battery dies.
It is inconvenient when I have to wait in a long line at the post office.
It is inconvenient when my car breaks down and I have to get it towed.

Using the word "inconvenient" to describe the situation of a woman with two kids, who's been unemployed for two years, living below the poverty line, separated from her husband (who has four kids), who now finds herself pregnant....

I just don't think it's a useful word here.

You described yourself as a shattered spirit when your own child was aborted. I would venture to guess that that descriptor probably fits for these women too. At least it's better than "inconvenient".

Again, the two most commonly paired reasons:

Inability to afford a baby and fear of *single* motherhood.

and

Inability to afford a baby and having completed childbearing.

For what it's worth, I think in a way you are somewhat right. If there was actually a "willing father" in the picture, many of these women might choose to keep the child.

Meg

 

[Luke T.]

I'm still not able to decide. I think both sides make valid points, and I'm not entirely sure if I agree with the abortion procedure or not but I don't think abortion should be illegal because I wouldn't want kids killing themselves with a hanger while trying to perform the abortion themselves or any unqualified person performing an abortion. Hopefully one day there will be a compromise on the abortion issue. Probably won't happen in any of our lifetimes though.

The back alley hangar abortion is all but myth. By the time of Roe v. Wade, such abortions were pretty much extinct. Illegal abortions were not much riskier than legal ones are today. And were Roe v. Wade overturned tomorrow, I seriously doubt there would be a rise in maternal mortality rates from illegal abortions.

I carefully documented all this in a topic on SC if anyone is interested.

To recap:

Close to half of the women in abortion clinics are there because of lack of contraception, or that contraception failed.

The vast majority of women who choose abortion do so because of poverty and lack of support for them to raise the child, - financially, emotionally, and/or physically.

If you want to drastically cut the amount of abortions performed each year, fix the above two problems.

As a pro-lifer, I have made these exact same points many times, mostly the first point. Starting in the same SC topic I mentioned above, in fact. Most everyone here who has heard me lecture/rant on abortion is familiar with my "nearly half" (46.7%) statements about the number of abortions which are the result of NO contraception.

I have a question for those of you that are anti-abortion.

Pretend you or your wife is pregnant.

Everything seems normal and fine until somewhere around the 5th month. At the routine sonogram, doctors see something quite troubling. There are strange deposits on the brain and many organs. The liver and spleen are enlarged. The head and brain are too small.

This is more fear-mongering on par with the "hangar abortions". Only a tiny percentage of the approximately 1.3 million annual abortions are health related.

If these concerns were really what being "pro-choice" was all about, then making abortions illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother, or even for severe birth defects, would be all that was necessary for everyone who is "pro-choice" to get on the "pro-life" side of the argument.

I'd bet there are more "pro-life" people who would favor the above example than there are "pro-choice" people who would.

 

[Luke T.]

This is the SC abortion topic I mentioned in my last topic. You can watch the evolution of my opinions about abortion change right before your eyes.

Here are reasons given for abortion from an objective source.

rape or incest 1 (0.4-1.3)
mother has health problems 3 (2.8)
possible fetal health problems 3 (3.3)

 

[Luke T.]

In Aborting America (1979) Nathanson writes: "In NARAL we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always '5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the 'morality' of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?"

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040528.html

You'll still see that 5,000 to 10,000 deaths figure quoted on some pro-choice sites to this day.

ETA: From the same source:

Self-induced and back-alley abortions were becoming a thing of the past long before Roe: sex researcher Alfred Kinsey estimated in the 1950s that around 85 percent of illegal abortions were performed by physicians, even if the physicians weren't all in good standing.

For 1972, the last full year before Roe, the federal Centers for Disease Control reported that 39 women died due to illegal abortion. (The death total for all abortions, including legal ones, was 88.)

 

[Abbyas]

If these concerns were really what being "pro-choice" was all about, then making abortions illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother, or even for severe birth defects, would be all that was necessary for everyone who is "pro-choice" to get on the "pro-life" side of the argument.

Not for me, and I'll explain why. I don't care why a woman doesn't want a child.

What matters to me is that she doesn't want to be pregnant. All pregnancies affect the health of the mother.


And to tell you the truth, I never really cared for the back alley argument myself. If we used that argument here, we could also use it to make female circumcision legal too.

Again, I just don't want a single person to be forced to be pregnant if she doesn't want to be.

 

[Luke T.]

Not for me, and I'll explain why. I don't care why a woman doesn't want a child.

What matters to me is that she doesn't want to be pregnant. All pregnancies affect the health of the mother.


And to tell you the truth, I never really cared for the back alley argument myself. If we used that argument here, we could also use it to make female circumcision legal too.

Again, I just don't want a single person to be forced to be pregnant if she doesn't want to be.

And that's a straightforward, honest opinion.

 

[Abbyas]

And that's a straightforward, honest opinion.

Thank you, Luke.

 

[bluess]

Not for me, and I'll explain why. I don't care why a woman doesn't want a child.

What matters to me is that she doesn't want to be pregnant. All pregnancies affect the health of the mother.


And to tell you the truth, I never really cared for the back alley argument myself. If we used that argument here, we could also use it to make female circumcision legal too.

Again, I just don't want a single person to be forced to be pregnant if she doesn't want to be.

Thanks, Abbyas.

 

[meg]

The back alley hangar abortion is all but myth. By the time of Roe v. Wade, such abortions were pretty much extinct. Illegal abortions were not much riskier than legal ones are today. And were Roe v. Wade overturned tomorrow, I seriously doubt there would be a rise in maternal mortality rates from illegal abortions.

from the guttmacher institute again:

Does the rate of abortion-related deaths differ between developed and developing countries?

* In developed countries, where the procedure is usually legal, abortion mortality is low (0.2-1.2 deaths per 100,000 abortions). But in developing regions (excluding China), where abortion is often illegal or highly restricted, abortion mortality is hundreds of times higher (330 deaths per 100,000 abortions). [74]

So, I don't think the above says that your assumption is true. In other areas of the world where abortion is illegal, the mortality rate from abortions is over 300 times higher.

meg: Pretend you or your wife is pregnant...

Luke T: This is more fear-mongering on par with the "hangar abortions". Only a tiny percentage of the approximately 1.3 million annual abortions are health related.

Perhaps you are confusing "health related reasons" with "to save the life of the mother".

This "tiny percentage" is

13% cited problems affecting the health of the fetus.

12% cited problems affecting their own health.

13% + 12% = 25%, doesn't it? 1 in 4. I wouldn't exactly call that a "tiny percentage". Even if some of the women answered both answers, we're still talking about more than 12%. Again, not a "tiny percentage". Nor is it "fear mongering".

25% percent of all 1.3 million abortions would be about 325,000.

12% is still 156,000.

These are not tiny numbers of people, nor are they trifling amounts. To poo-poo them away as irrelevent tells me that you're not looking at the real picture.

The scenario I described is a real disease, called CMV, which affects over 56,000 babies/pregnancies per year. Not all in as severe a form as the one I described. The one I described was from my own memory of listening to a woman discuss this problem on a radio program. It was my attempt to recreate what she said the doctors told her.

The reason I posed that problem was because listening to that woman describe her situation crystalized in my mind that the ONLY ones that can make the heart wrenching decision of whether to keep or abort that baby is that family. NO ONE has the right to tell that family what they should do, or when they should do it. NO ONE has the right to demand they do one thing or another. NO ONE understands their situation like they do.

The point of that exercise was to say/show, if there is *any* reason that you can think of that might lead you to consider having an abortion, then you have no right to tell others what they may or may not decide. You and I don't know what's going on in any woman's mind at that time, let alone in her home or in her life. Perhaps she is unemployed and in bankruptcy, perhaps she is in a violent relationship, perhaps she already has a special needs child and doesn't have a moment to spare. Perhaps she is caring for a parent. No one but she knows what her breaking point is. No one but she can make this huge decision that will affect and hugely impact the rest of her life.

Meg

 

[chris epic]

What matters to me is that she doesn't want to be pregnant. All pregnancies affect the health of the mother.
.

All the health affects from a normal, run of the mill pregnancy are natural, but you're saying that if a woman doesn't want to experience that stuff then its okay to get an abortion?

 

[chris epic]

rape or incest 1 (0.4-1.3)
mother has health problems 3 (2.8)
possible fetal health problems 3 (3.3)

These are Luke's stats and yours are higher, Meg- so which one is it? 6% or 25%?

 

[jj]

All the health affects from a normal, run of the mill pregnancy are natural, but you're saying that if a woman doesn't want to experience that stuff then its okay to get an abortion?

Death from smallpox is natural, too.

Your point?

 

[Luke T.]

from the guttmacher institute again:

Does the rate of abortion-related deaths differ between developed and developing countries?

* In developed countries, where the procedure is usually legal, abortion mortality is low (0.2-1.2 deaths per 100,000 abortions). But in developing regions (excluding China), where abortion is often illegal or highly restricted, abortion mortality is hundreds of times higher (330 deaths per 100,000 abortions). [74]

So, I don't think the above says that your assumption is true. In other areas of the world where abortion is illegal, the mortality rate from abortions is over 300 times higher.

And what is the difference between mortality rates for live births in the U.S. and those countries? Average life expectancies? General health care access? Quality of health care across the whole spectrum? Did you notice they said "developing" regions and not "developed"?

The reason I posed that problem was because listening to that woman describe her situation crystalized in my mind that the ONLY ones that can make the heart wrenching decision of whether to keep or abort that baby is that family.

And I recall NARAL's "we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics".

 

[Luke T.]

This "tiny percentage" is


13% + 12% = 25%, doesn't it? 1 in 4. I wouldn't exactly call that a "tiny percentage". Even if some of the women answered both answers, we're still talking about more than 12%. Again, not a "tiny percentage". Nor is it "fear mongering".

25% percent of all 1.3 million abortions would be about 325,000.

12% is still 156,000.

You are quoting numbers from an unstructured survey in that report.

On page 5 of the survey is a table listing "their most important reason for having an abortion". In that table, "Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus" rings in at 3 percent. "Physical problems with my health" rings in at 4 percent. Rape comes in at less than one half of one percent.

 

[meg]

These are Luke's stats and yours are higher, Meg- so which one is it? 6% or 25%?

Luke's link quotes some of the numbers from a 1987 study done by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The link I posted (Alan Guttmacher institute) is a more recent study that includes numbers from other years studies as well.

editted to add:
Hmm further down in LukeT's link it quotes the 2004 agi study, which I gave the link to. The numbers quoted in LukeT's link are not the same numbers listed in the actual AGI report.

 

[Luke T.]

Luke's link quotes some of the numbers from a 1987 study done by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The link I posted (Alan Guttmacher institute) is a more recent study that includes numbers from other years studies as well.

editted to add:
Hmm further down in LukeT's link it quotes the 2004 agi study, which I gave the link to. The numbers quoted in LukeT's link are not the same numbers listed in the actual AGI report.

See my last post.