What do you all think?

Please don't assign me a position. Just because i dont unabashadely accept abortion as right does not make me pro life. In fact, i've said that i am not for overturning roe vs wade. I just find the logic that many 'pro-choice' rely on is rather shaky(i.e. the abortions will happen in the back of alley argument!). I am not for banning abortion outright.

Thank you.

 

How is the logic shaky? It's true! Outlaw anything and people are still going to do it...and get it in means that might not be so good and oftentimes dangerous. Look at Prohibition or the current marijuana situation!

 

You answered your own question.


Furthermore, if abortion becomes illegal, it will be because the unborn baby is a protected class(i.e. it is a human). A woman who goes into the back alley and uses a clothes hanger will be commiting murder. It is the victim we would worry about, not the murderer.

Prohibition and the marijuana situation are not similar because they dont involve another party(the unborn infant...who would be a human). Regardless, they were/are the law of the land and until the law is changed the law must be enforced(or it undermines our whole entire legal system).

This is IF abortion is illegal.

 

By it being illegal, women can't do it with the support of doctors and psychologists and that is just as important as the abortion itself. Abortion isn't easy on anyone, especially the woman, but a baby being born in a household that is not healthy or put into the system isn't a very good option either.

What's the difference between doing it in their house with a clothes hanger and in a doctor's office? Both are still abortions, but the difference is, it's more sanitary and there's more after-care support than doing it in your bathroom. Women should have the option to do something if a condom (or other BC) fails...if they can't have an abortion, what do you suppose they do instead?

 

Legally, that wouldn't matter.

Well if it is illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion then it would also be illegal for a mother to perform her own. So if she performed one, she would be commiting an illegal act. Her safety is a non issue in commiting a crime.

It wouldn't matter if the condom broke because the kid's right to live trumps the right of the mother to abort it.

Remember, this is if abortion is illegal. I don't support making abortion illegal.

I'll say this though. If a person isnt ready to parent a kid then they should not be having sex. Is that realistic? Probably not. But blaming anyone but yourself(outside of rape) for pregnancy(or getting someone pregnant) is silly. No one should rely on anything that isnt 100% fullproof.

 

So a kid's right to live trumps a woman's choice? A woman that has thoughts, feelings, emotions, and consequences. This baby does not, especially if the zygote is just that...a zygote.

I don't think women getting an abortion is "blaming" anyone, either. She's taking her life in her own hands.

 

You arent listening.

If Abortion is ILLEGAL it is becuase that 'zygote' is considered as much a human as you or me.

Yes, a mother cannot choose to kill another human(the zygote).

This is NOT the case right now. Thus the mother's right to 'choose' is not trumped by the zygote's right to live.

i never said she was blaming anyone. But a girl doesn't get pregnant because a condom broke. She gets pregnant because she has sex. The fault is hers(and his), not the condoms.

But again, that's fine that she takes her own life into her hands. However, if abortion is illegal(and thus a zygote is considered HUMAN) then she would be making a choice involving someone other than herself. Thus its not not just an issue of her body, it is an issue of another living human and she has no right to choose life or death for that being.

 

Maybe some, but far fewer than the 1-1.5 million abortions currently performed every year. I guess I need to re-post these references that no one here has bothered to deal with:

http://web.archive.org/web/20021213093126/http://www.roevwade.org/myths2.html

http://www.ortl.org/publications/articles.php?articleID=88

I now have 2 adopted kids, but that's really beside the point. Such purely anecdotal evidence is virtually meaningless.

Why don't you check out the Kristin Luker book that I just cited for you?

 

Honestly, those sites you cited are of no interest to me. The first article is from a guy that works at a Catholic University and the second is a website from the "Right to Life" campaign. These are both bias...in which case, I can't possibly get the right information from it...because it is slanted.

If you're going to cite something, cite something that is unbiased.

Second, we don't know how many abortions happened before abortion was legal. Because if you reported it, you'd be a criminal. Point is, it will happen and it will happen in settings that are less than desirable. So not only will the baby die, but the mother risks severe sickness, disease, or possibly death.

Of course, you'd probably say she deserved it

 

That's a total copout. If they contain inaccurate information, then you should be able to point that out and provide contrary evidence.

First, the most reliable estimates are far lower than the present abortion rate. It's not perfect information, but it's significant.

Second, it's noteworthy that there is no evidence that legalizing abortion has lowered the maternal death rate.

 

I have a very scientific brain, I don't take in consideration biased information...you can make any statistic support your side. That's why I don't buy into it.

 

doesn't ireland(no abortion allowed) have one of the lowest maternal death rates in the world?

 

I found very irratic numbers on the maternal death rates for Irish womyn. Some as high as 12 per 100,000, some (all of antichoice sites) as low as 6 per 100,000.

Here is a VERY interesting article from the Guttmacher Institute about Maternal Death Rates and Abortion in Ireland. (for the most part, Irish womyn consider a trip to England for an abortion a normal part of life. As you can't get birth control in Ireland, you can do this or have 20 kids by the time you are 45 years old.)

An interesting note. There were MORE abortions before Roe V Wade, with lower population, than there are NOW, with legal abortion and better access to birth control.

 

There were just over 800,000 induced abortions in the USA in 2001, this has dropped since. Considering there are a good deal more people than there were even 20 years ago, the number of abortions is reduced when the availability of contraception increases.


Here is a chart about legal abortions and maternal death rates. In Ireland, we may as well consider abortion legal, as it is only a cheap boat ride away to England. PLUS Ireland had National Health, which ALWAYS increases healthy pregnancy outcomes. Let's look at outcomes where womyn do NOT have access to cheap contraception,


CountryAbortion rate per 1,000 women aged 15-44*Maternal deaths




Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (This didn't copy properly. the second number is the number of deaths per 100, 000 womyn.)



Where abortion is legal

United States 26 12






England/Wales 15 9







Netherlands 6 12







Finland 10 11







Japan 14 18







Australia 17 9







Where abortion is illegal



Brazil 38 220







Colombia 34 100







Chile 45 65







Dominican Republic 44 110







Mexico 23 110







Peru 52 280






*Data are for 1990; age-group is 15-49 in countries where abortion is illegal. Sources: Abortion rates are from S. Singh and S.K. Henshaw, "The Incidence of Abortion: A Worldwide Overview Focusing on Methodology and on Latin America," paper delivered at International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Seminar on Socio-Cultural and Political Aspects of Abortion from an Anthropological Perspective, Trivandrum, India, Mar. 25-28, 1996; maternal death rates are from P. Adamson, "A Failure of Imagination," The Progress of Nations: 1996, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), New York, 1996.


THESE are the numbers we should be looking at. Not a county like Ireland, where although illegal, abortion is completely accessable for most womyn. (Although contraception is not, thus, it is beleived Irish womyn actually have HIGHER abortion rates than English womyn, who have acceess to contraception.)

 

The only number i can find on abortions around 800k(850 actually) was when it counted only 47 states...excluding california..the largest state in the union. Very misleading.

anything that compares colombia, peru, dominican republic to finland, britain, and the us is obviously unfair. 1st world vs 2nd/3rd world.... Colombia for christ sakes...

 

Simply because a country isn't "First World" doesn't mean it can''t have good maternal statistics. Columbia has good health care, but it is a Catholic Country and abortion and birth control are illegal.

The number of 800,000 was from the GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE and the CDC, for the entire country, not just California. I trust the CDC over some hystrionic antichoice site.

The fact is, better access to birth control (including morning after, which IS birth control) lower abortion stats, and better outcomes for womyn.

Did you read the info on Ireland? Not so much a good country to use for antichoice anecdotes, is it?

 

Are you seriously going to argue that colombia, peru, mexico, dominican republic have as good of healthcare, living standards, low rates of poverty, disease, malnutrition and everything else that affects maternal deathrates as australia, finland and the netherlands?

from the GUTTMACHER INSTITUE.

"In 2002, 1.29 million abortions took place, down from an estimated 1.36 million in 1996. "

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

now for the cdc...

"Results: A total of 857,475 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC for 2000 from 49 reporting areas, representing a 0.5% decrease from the 861,789 legal induced abortions reported by 48 reporting areas for 1999 and a 1.3% decrease for the same 48 reporting areas that reported in 1999.

...

For 2000, CDC compiled data that were voluntarily provided from 49 reporting areas in the United States: 47 states (excluding Alaska, California, and New Hampshire), the District of Columbia, and New York City."


http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5212a1.htm

Your statistics are incomplete, as i said. I trust the CDC and the guttmacher institute too. As i said, it is misleading to rely on statistics that exlude the largest state in the union and roughly 38-40 million. Ontop of that, they only include legal abortions. I'm sure it is impossible to acurately guess how many illegal abortions take place in this country...but that further complicates comparing pre roe vs wade abortions to post as you are comparing illegal to legal abortions.

Yes, i did and that may well explain the low maternal death rate.

However, the statistics you showed comparing peru to australia are rather...shaky, dontcha think?

 

From the CDC, as abortion reporting is not mandatory:

They go on to say it is basically impossible to get a solid number on how many abortions are procured each year. BUT, they do say the way the stats are compiled can inflate numbers! Still, even IF CA didn't report, the numbers of the prodecures declined.

In addition, the Guttmacher institute reported 29 abortions per 1000 womyn in 1980 down to 20 in 2003. (There was no way to transfer the table.) The numbers are still going down, and this is due to better education and better access to birth control. The CDC's numbers obviously don't agree with Guttmacher, as the CDC is still sticking to 8000,000 estimate. but the number 800,000 also appeared on a different Guttmacher page.

 

More from Guttmacher about the numbers and reporting:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2005/05/18/ab_incidence.pdf

The Institute admits their numbers were too high. Regardless of the actual individiual number MY POINT WAS that abortion is declining, which is a good thing. It is now at a lower rate (per 100,000 womyn of childbearing age) than when it was illegal. Illegalization of the procedure would, if one follows history and logic INCREASE the rate per 100,000 womyn who have the procedure. THAT was my point, not the specific numbers. (Seeing as getting actual numbers is impossible.)

 

The numbers are actually about even. In 1973 they were 16.3. In 1975 they were 21.7. In 2002 they were 20.9. This is hardly a great change.

Also lets look at what you posted from the cdc site.

"Because these data are reported voluntarily, several limitations exist. First, abortion data are compiled and reported to CDC by reporting area where the abortion was performed rather than by where the woman resides. This inflates the numbers, ratios, and rates of abortions for areas where a high proportion of legal abortions are obtained by out-of-state residents and undercounts procedures for states with limited abortion services or more stringent legal requirements for obtaining an abortion (causing women to seek abortions elsewhere)."

You have to read the sentence as a WHOLE. It says it inflates the number of abortions for certain areas and UNCOUNTS others. It is not saying that it inflates the number of total abortions!

Now lets read a bit further...

"Fourth, the overall number, ratio, and rate of abortions are conservative estimates because the total numbers of legal induced abortions provided by central health agencies and reported to CDC for 2000 were probably lower than the numbers actually performed. "


But yes, the real number off abortions seems to be absolutely impossible to get. They are estimates and thus i find it hard to make any conclusion on them.