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Abortion: politically important, but materially?

jakurus

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I've come to the conclusion that there is only one option for any country that respects the rights of its people with respect to abortion.

In fact, there is only one moral option to choose.

Abortions must be "safe, legal, and rare."

*assumptions: virtually all abortions performed are either medically necessary or necessary to the future of the family. *

The only difference between a society where abortions are illegal and legal is that in a society in which they are legal, the abortions kill less women in the process, and in a society where they are illegal, more women die at the hands of less reputable doctors in shabbier conditions.

The same numbers of babies die, and it's a tragedy, but the only material difference between the societies is that more innocent mothers die if abortion is illegal.
 
As for why the abortion issue seems so important:

Because it is such a hugely important issue to individual and involves killing a human it gets a dissproportionate amount of attention.

Here's how I think the attention is proportioned:

1. During elections: It is a huge issue, one of less then 10 or so issues that can determine a person's vote on it's own.

2. During actual governance: It gets no attention, because it affects very few people's actual lives. Politicians actual governance of the country is focused on things that affect our lives materially, for our country's resources are finite.
 
I think this might belong in the abortion forum, although it's really just trying to explain how abortion dominates the headlines but really does not affect very many people's lives, and how that affects it's treatment by the press, voters, politicians, and in the actual material policy that creates.
 
Excellent topic, I think your right - moved to the abortion forum.

1. During elections: It is a huge issue, one of less then 10 or so issues that can determine a person's vote on it's own.

2. During actual governance: It gets no attention, because it affects very few people's actual lives. Politicians actual governance of the country is focused on things that affect our lives materially, for our country's resources are finite.
I haven't really thought about it like this, but I think you are spot on. It is ashame.
 
I'm ashamed I said "then" instead of "than." Whoopsie. And now I can't edit my post.

Anyways,

that's how it is.

Abortion is a political tool, nothing more.
 
jakurus said:
I've come to the conclusion that there is only one option for any country that respects the rights of its people with respect to abortion.

In fact, there is only one moral option to choose.

Abortions must be "safe, legal, and rare."

*assumptions: virtually all abortions performed are either medically necessary or necessary to the future of the family. *

The only difference between a society where abortions are illegal and legal is that in a society in which they are legal, the abortions kill less women in the process, and in a society where they are illegal, more women die at the hands of less reputable doctors in shabbier conditions.

The same numbers of babies die, and it's a tragedy, but the only material difference between the societies is that more innocent mothers die if abortion is illegal.

The problem is abortions are not rare in fact there have been 40,000,000 abortions performed since Roe V wade was enacted in 1972.........
 
jakurus said:
The same numbers of babies die, and it's a tragedy, but the only material difference between the societies is that more innocent mothers die if abortion is illegal.

Interesting statement I would like to see the source for that statement. I am sure you have statistics showing that just as many children are aborted in illegal countries as in legal countries.
 
Nope, but I suppose you think that people are just having abortions without insanely good reasons?

Personally, I'd like to see as many pregnancies carried to term and then the babies adopted, but people need abortions.
 
Here we go:

Abortion Statistics - World

In 54 countries (61% of the world population) abortions are legal.
In 97 countries (39% of the world population) abortions are illegal.
There are approximately 46 million abortions conducted eacy year, 20 million of them obtained illegally.
There are approximately 126,000 abortions conducted each day.
Abortion Statistics - U.S.

Approximately 1,370,000 abortions occur annually in the U.S. according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Click here to see the approximate number of abortions in the U.S. per year from 1973-1996. In 2001, 1.31 million abortions took place.
88% of abortions occur during the first 6 to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
60% of abortions are performed on women who already have one or more children.
47% of abortions are performed on women who have already had one or more abortions.
43% of women will have had at least one abortion by the time they are 45 years old (this statistic includes miscarriages in the term "abortion").
 
Abortions are going down in the US, unfathomable!

Approximate number of abortions in the U.S. per year (based on assumptions by the Alan Guttmacher Institute).

1996 - 1,365,700
1995 - 1,363,700
1994 - 1,431,000
1993 - 1,500,000
1992 - 1,528,900
1991 - 1,556,500
1990 - 1,608,600
1989 - 1,566,900
1988 - 1,590,800
1987 - 1,559,100
1986 - 1,574,000
1985 - 1,588,600
1984 - 1,577,200
1983 - 1,575,000
1982 - 1,573,900
1981 - 1,577,300
1980 - 1,553,900
1979 - 1,497,700
1978 - 1,409,600
1977 - 1,316,700
1976 - 1,179,300
1975 - 1,034,200
1974 - 898,600
1973 - 774,600
 
Mas:

Abortion Statistics - Demographics
Age - The majority of women getting an abortion are young. 52% are younger than 25 years old and 19% are teenagers. The abortion rate is highest for those women aged 18 to 19 (56 per 1,000 in 1992.)
Marriage - 51% of women who are unmarried when they become pregnant will receive an abortion. Unmarried women are 6 times more likely than married women to have an abortion. 67% of abortions are from women who have never been married.
Race - 63% of abortion patients are white, however, black women are more than 3 times as likely to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2.5 times as likely.
Religion - 43% of women getting an abortion claimed they were Protestant, while 27% claimed they were Catholic.
Abortion Statistics - Decisions to Have an Abortion (U.S.)

25.5% of women deciding to have an abortion want to postpone childbearing.
21.3% of women cannot afford a baby.
14.1% of women have a relationship issue or their partner does not want a child.
12.2% of women are too young (their parents or others object to the pregnancy.)
10.8% of women feel a child will disrupt their education or career.
7.9% of women want no (more) children.
3.3% of women have an abortion due to a risk to fetal health.
2.8% of women have an abortion due to a risk to maternal health.
Abortion Statistics - Using Contraception (U.S.)

54% of women having an abortion said they used some form of contraception during the month they became pregnant.
90% of women who are at risk for unplanned pregnancies are using contraception
8% of women having an abortion say they have never used contraception.
It is possible that up to 43% of the decline in abortion from 1994-2000 can be attributed to using emergency contraception.
Abortion Statistics - Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

According to a USA Today, CNN Gallup Poll in May, 1999 - 16% of Americans believe abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy and 55% of American believe abortion should be legal only to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.
According to a Gallup Poll in January, 2001 - People who considered themselves to be pro-life rose from 33% to 43% in the past 5 years, and people who considered themselves to be pro-choice declined from 56% to 48%.
The majority of these statistics were taken from The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
 
jakurus said:
Here we go:

Abortion Statistics - World

In 54 countries (61% of the world population) abortions are legal.
In 97 countries (39% of the world population) abortions are illegal.
There are approximately 46 million abortions conducted eacy year, 20 million of them obtained illegally.
There are approximately 126,000 abortions conducted each day.
Abortion Statistics - U.S.

Approximately 1,370,000 abortions occur annually in the U.S. according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Click here to see the approximate number of abortions in the U.S. per year from 1973-1996. In 2001, 1.31 million abortions took place.
88% of abortions occur during the first 6 to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
60% of abortions are performed on women who already have one or more children.
47% of abortions are performed on women who have already had one or more abortions.
43% of women will have had at least one abortion by the time they are 45 years old (this statistic includes miscarriages in the term "abortion").

Interesting, I wonder how anyone proposes to give a fair statistic on illegal abortions. Do the illegal abortion clinics report stats on their illegal activity :confused:

Also I wonder how many of those countries that are "illegal" do they have any law about abortion at all. Don't get me wrong I appreciate you posting the statistics and I know you didn't compile the data, but let's face it anyone can come up with statistics, the real question is how was the data compiled.

I am even more skeptical since they added in miscarriage with abortion on that last stat. I don't see them as the same thing.
 
Some data is better than no data.

My whole premise is of course theory, but I would hope people don't just decide to get an abortion for convenience. Either their life is over if they carry out the pregnancy or they need it because of medical/mental health reaons, or they got raped.
 
jakurus said:
Some data is better than no data.

My whole premise is of course theory, but I would hope people don't just decide to get an abortion for convenience. Either their life is over if they carry out the pregnancy or they need it because of medical/mental health reaons, or they got raped.

Well I don't know if I agree, I think I would rather have no data then false. Of course that is guessing if the information is truly false, I admit I don't know how it was compiled, just parts of it make me suspicious.

Unfortunately there are people out there having abortion for convenience. A very small portion make up rape, life of mother, etc. I think if this was the only reason someone got an abortion it wouldn't be that big of an issue, it would mainly be argued by extremists on both sides that either want it all, or they want it all banned.
 
In any case, it's nothing worth losing an election over.

Worse case if it's legal: people get a few abortions for convenience.
Illegal: women carry the baby to term and give the baby up for adoption.

I can live with either, I can't live with corruption in government.
 
jakurus said:
In any case, it's nothing worth losing an election over.

Worse case if it's legal: people get a few abortions for convenience.
Illegal: women carry the baby to term and give the baby up for adoption.

I can live with either, I can't live with corruption in government.

I agree that I cannot live with corruption in government but I also cannot live with children being killed for convenience. Also, it is no where near just a few abortions for the sake of convenience, the number is much higher then a few.
 
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