I’ve seen a couple of references online to a recent study showing “US abortion rates plummet with free birth control.”
But that’s really beside the point. While a lot of the focus is on the horrors of killing babies, when presented with an effective way of reducing that number, a lot of abortion rights opponents are strangely unmoved. Or, it’s strange if one takes at face value the rhetoric about holocausts of murdered babies and whatnot. Less openly discussed is a desire that people, particularly women, stop engaging in unsanctioned sexual activity.
Having both of those goals is fine. There are reasons – not ones I agree with necessarily – for both policy desires. But, birth control and studies such as these serve to highlight priorities. It presents a choice. Which is worse? Unsanctioned sex or murdered babies? Seems like a no-brainer; baby-murdering seems like the worst thing ever if that’s honestly what you think is happening at an abortion clinic. Turning a blind eye to the painted Jezebels in your midst seems like a small price to pay.
And yet. A very small number of abortion rights opponents are willing to get on board with policies that make birth control more widely available.
Providing free birth control to women and teens in Missouri at high risk of unplanned pregnancies led to a drastic drop in abortion rates and teenage mothers, a study published Thursday found.
If the same results were replicated across the United States, free birth control could prevent 1,060,370 unplanned pregnancies and 873,250 abortions a year.
Teens and unmarried women might have sex – they might even get the idea that their behavior is acceptable; but you’ll have 873,250 fewer baby murders each year. Hopefully I’m not being disrespectful by saying that I simply don’t grasp your worldview if this is a close choice.
I think the logic (sic) is that when faced with two perceived evils (premarital sex & abortion) aggressively pursue option 3 (abstain) despite all evidence to the contrary that option 3 doesn’t work. This is the opposite of a means justify the ends approach in that only the means matters since the ends aren’t possible.
Interesting analysis. If the ends aren’t possible, we will just redouble our efforts at effectuating the means.
Not sure I understand your point.
Abstinence always works in these cases, by definition.
What does not work is expecting that it will be generally practiced, especially in the absence of societal pressure and sanction.
My point is obvious. Abstinence was never completely practiced, even in those mythic days of social pressure and sanction. It has not been extremely effective throught history, even with the convents and Arthurian love poems.
Redoubled howls be punished back to piety will not work, either.
Abstinence doesn’t always work. e.g. Christ, Jesus H.
Not to be blasphemous, but if I were Joseph, I think I would have been skeptical.
(Another good item to think about, Doug !)
The linkage between reduced abortion rates and the availability of birth control is both intuitive, and statistically valid. One could say unwanted pregnancies (whether aborted or not) are reduced when birth control is there.
IMO all abortion is the taking of a human life, but within the first two trimesters (before the kid could survive on its own) it’s up to the mother to decide. I realize there’s many opinions on where to draw the line, if there is a line. Catholics are at one extreme, believing that using birth control pills that prevent the initial ‘spark’ of life, equates to murder. At the other extreme, some people think abortion at 9 months is okey-dokey. These extremes are repulsive to me, for different reasons.
I think sex for pleasure is a good thing, whether with another person or alone, lol. Everyone should get it on if that’s what they want. The US has such a strange conglomeration of extremists that we wind up with nonsensical public policy. IMO birth control should be freely available to anyone, not only to prevent pregnancy, but to promote the use of condoms for disease prevention. I think girls and boys should be paid to be ‘fixed’, though am leery of the eugenics tie-in. What I can’t tolerate is the Catholic (et al) view that sex for pleasure is bad, birth control is bad, and abortion is bad. Abortion is so traumatic.
The City of Indy has an Orwellian law regarding condom sales. “Sec. 421-103. – Sale of contraceptive devices” begins with:
“In promoting the public morals, health, peace and security in the city, each of the following acts and things in the city are hereby prohibited and declared to be unlawful:”
421-103 outlaws sales of condoms and vibrators to minors. IMO this law is in opposition to public health.
You are right that unplanned pregnancy (usually failure to use birth control) drives abortions. According to a Guttmacher Powerpoint that I can’t locate right now, about half of pregnancies are unplanned, and about 40% of those unplanned pregnancy. So we must come to terms with the fact that many abortions are done as a method of birth control. So it is probably accurate to say that over a million abortions a year result from failure to use effective birth control.