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The Abortion Debate
We've had quite a month in South Bend. When the President accepted the invitation to speak at Notre Dame's commencement ceremony, the media jumped all over the supposed re-ignition of the abortion debate.
No contraceptive method is 100% accurate, but the overwhelming majority of women who have abortions have either not used any contraception or have used it inconsistently. This only strengthens the theory that better education about, and availability of, contraceptives would reduce the number of abortions.
Here is a place where the anti-abortion movement has had some success. Eighty-seven percent of all U.S. counties lack an abortion provider. This unfairly burdens the young and the poor, who are less likely to have the means to travel. Even still, the young and the poor make up the largest group of women who have abortions, yet again strengthening the argument for better education and access to family planning.
Take a look at this chart:
Only slightly over 1% of abortions occur after 21 weeks. When a woman finds out she is pregnant, if the pregnancy is unintended, she doesn't wait for seven months to decide what to do. Late term abortions are overwhelmingly employed when the mother's life is in danger. By banning the procedure, we are endangering women.
I predict that the number of medication abortions will grow and the number of surgical abortions will decrease. This is a positive development. Now, in the privacy of a doctor's office, women, and those close to them, are able to make decisions about their own bodies without the intrusion of strangers.
Randall Terry came to perform an Operation Rescue--with Alan Keyes in tow. I'm not sure who was rescued, but I did notice that they were very good at getting arrested, pushing around strollers with blood-drenched plastic dolls, and publicly displaying graphic images of aborted fetuses--on trucks, on airplane banners, and on posters. They were also pretty good at pissing off the locals.
Terry and Keyes promised an army of protesters 20,000 strong, that would line the streets surrounding campus. Terry said, "My goal, and my challenge to everyone, is to create such a political mud pit here that Obama chooses to not walk through it in order to speak."
I wanted Randall to tell you how that worked out for him, but he was a little busy this morning what with the arraignment and all, so I'll have to fill you in. I'm not so good with the math, but I don't think 300 equals 20,000. Even still, I can see how 300 angry white people (plus Alan Keyes) holding pictures of cut up fetuses and calling random passersby "murderers" is jarring. The media sure liked it. The protesters got loads of press coverage. Locally, the police handed out "No Trespassing" signs so that the people who actually live on the street where the out-of-towners were camped could have them arrested if they stepped onto private property. I saw one guy interviewed who was running his sprinklers. With a twinkle in his eye, he told a reporter that the water was nourishing his lawn. And the sidewalk.
I've been a bit busy in April and May, so I didn't get a chance to watch much of the coverage. What I did see concentrated more on whether Notre Dame was committing mortal sin with the invitation or whether the anti-Obama Catholics were committing mortal hypocrisy. Guess which one I pick.
Anyway, the protests are over now, and the abortion controversy has been effectively over for a while. A recent Gallup poll indicated that the majority of Americans were pro-life. But a new CNN poll reveals that although 51% of Americans might call themselves "pro-life," 68% of us do not wish to see Roe vs. Wade overturned. Hey, Randall, maybe the 30% of Americans who do want it overturned will chip in to pay your court costs. It's been a while since I thought much about abortion as a national political issue what with war and torture and economic disaster being front and center. So, I went looking for some abortion statistics this morning. What I found is a report from the Guttmacher Instituted from July 2008 titled, Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States.
WHO HAS ABORTIONS?
*Fifty percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and teenagers obtain 17%.
*Thirty-seven percent of abortions occur to black women, 34% to non-Hispanic white women, 22% to Hispanic women and 8% to women of other races.
*Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.
*About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.
The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). This is partly because the rate of unintended pregnancies among poor women (below 100% of poverty) is nearly four times that of women above 200% of poverty (112 vs. 29 per 1,000 women).
*The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.
No surprise here. Most of the women having abortions are young or poor, or both. So, if a group was, say, truly committed to reducing the number of abortions (as opposed to, for example, controlling women and throwing temper tantrums until they get their way), my suggestion would be to make contraception and sex education more widely available to the young and the poor.
Abortion is legal. An overwhelming majority of the country supports abortion remaining legal. Instead of using negative tactics in a probably-doomed attempt to reverse that trend, why not use positive tactics to educate and protect those who are least equipped to care for a child?
Still, even when contraceptives are used, they sometimes fail.
*Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report correct use.
*Forty-six percent of women who have abortions had not used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant. Of these women, 33% had perceived themselves to be at low risk for pregnancy, 32% had had concerns about contraceptive methods, 26% had had unexpected sex and 1% had been forced to have sex.
*Eight percent of women who have abortions have never used a method of birth control; non-use is greatest among those who are young, poor, black, Hispanic or less educated.
*About half of unintended pregnancies occur among the 11% of women who are at risk for unintended pregnancy but are not using contraceptives. Most of these women have practiced contraception in the past.
PROVIDERS AND SERVICES
*The number of U.S. abortion providers declined by 2% between 2000 and 2005 (from 1,819 to 1,787). Eighty-seven percent of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion provider in 2005; 35% of women live in those counties.
*Forty percent of providers offer very early abortions (even before the first missed period) and 96% offer abortion at eight weeks from the last menstrual period. Sixty-seven percent of providers offer at least some second-trimester abortion services (13 weeks or later), and 20% offer abortion after 20 weeks. Only 8% of all abortion providers offer abortions at 24 weeks.
*The proportion of providers offering abortion at four or fewer weeks' gestation increased from 7% in 1993 to 40% in 2005.
*In 2005, the cost of a non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia at 10 weeks' gestation ranged from $90 to $1,800; the average amount paid was $413.
The next section of the report might be my favorite, because it is a great illustration of how the pro-life movement has used scare tactics and misinformation to enact legislation that handcuffs doctors and hurts women.
*Eighty-nine percent of abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, 2004.
Eighty-nine percent! So much for the theory that women wait until the fetus is viable to decide they don't want to carry it to term.
Only slightly over 1% of abortions occur after 21 weeks. When a woman finds out she is pregnant, if the pregnancy is unintended, she doesn't wait for seven months to decide what to do. Late term abortions are overwhelmingly employed when the mother's life is in danger. By banning the procedure, we are endangering women.
Finally, let's take a look at medication abortion.
*In September 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion drug Mifepristone to be marketed in the United States as an alternative to surgical abortion.
*In 2005, 57% of abortion providers, or 1,026 facilities, provided one or more medication abortions, a 70% increase from the first half of 2001. At least 10% of nonhospital abortion providers offer only medication abortion services.
*Medication abortion accounted for 13% of all abortions, and 22% of abortions before nine weeks' gestation, in 2005.
I expect that the rancor of the abortion debate will continue to subside as medication abortions increase, although I'm not sure that the two opposing sides will ever be able to overcome the demonization of one other. I know it's a struggle for me to accept that those who oppose abortion always act out of good faith. But it's a struggle I'm willing to wage with myself, providing I'm met halfway.
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Cross posted at Dagblog, as usual.
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Great post, Orlando. You've consolidated the most cogent statistics in one solid blog.
May 20, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The organization in controversy is the source of the statistics. I can't see how there is not a massive conflict of interest in that.
For those who gloss over it, I can only imagine that it is another case of partisanship eroding ethics and defending it.
May 21, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a blog post and discussion thread with a different perspective:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mike7woodson/2009/05/inching-away-from-the-abyss-mo.php
May 21, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Concise information. Good post, Orlando.
May 20, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
How may pro-life men (and women) hear, and comprehend, that NO woman wants to have an abortion? That if a woman chooses to have one, it is reluctantly, a hard choice about which she is uneasy, if not haunted, forever after?
Readily available birth control -- so sensible, so easy. Why, then, is this debate ongoing in 2009?
Prevent the necessity of no-win choice. Educate and armor, pro-actively.
Thanks, Orlando. It bears saying again and again.
May 20, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the education has been as loud as Dolby speakers, but people are ignoring the education. Didactics from officials, especially school officials, carries a particularly small amount of credibility for kids. Instruction from parents who love kids and are willing to enforce the rules of the roost are actually effective.
May 21, 2009 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's such a Mad World
May 20, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your "CNN poll" link goes to a USA Today article with no mention of CNN. ?? Here is a link to the result:
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
I found this video from a Libertyville Demonstration to be informative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo
The idea is basically that the people demonstrating to make abortion illegal had not thought out what 'illegal' means, in terms of what kind of punishment should be applied to women who get an abortion. This suggest that they are using "make abortion illegal" as a rhetorical tool to express poorly thought out sentiments which are a bit different.
This combined with the CNN poll result you mention suggest to me that the reality is far in favor of "pro-choice".
May 20, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have posed the question to my anti-abortion friends what they think should happen to doctors and women if Roe v. Wade is overturned and it becomes illegal to have an abortion. I ask "Who should go to jail? The Doctor or the woman who has an abortion? Or both?" They give me an absolutely blank look. They have not thought it through. If we make abortion illegal, the logical discussion should be "What then?" Maybe that is the discussion we should be pushing....
May 20, 2009 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're absolutely correct. They haven't given the issue much thought at all. They think that if outlawed, abortions simply would be unavailable. And of course, we all know that would not be the case given the history of the issue. I'm old enough to know and recall that prior to Roe v Wade much, if not most, of the debate centered upon legalization as the only practical and reasonable means of shutting down the very dangerous abortion mill business. That's all been lost amidst the shouts of "baby killers!" from the people who are against abortion.
May 20, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
First of all, good post O...I hadn't heard statistics lately and it was a good reminder.
LindyLou, you may have a good idea about using the illegality issue. I think most people are more interested in stopping abortion than they are in "criminalizing" it. I liked the President's speech suggesting that we work on ways of preventing unwanted pregnancies as a means of the 2 sides cooperating on this issue.
The joke is the Republicans insisting on abstinence. It is so unrealistic as to be laughable, and the proof is right in front of their eyes. If their golden girl, Sarah Palin, could not keep HER daughter's knees together, how do they expect anyone else to?
May 20, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like the same thing as in the video.
But what I'm thinking of is that "make abortion illegal" is just some empty phraseology they have been taught or brainwashed to repeat in one form or another. This is not subject to reason, it must be deprogrammed or finessed. The phrase represent something entirely different to those folks than what it does outside of the cultish system they are in. Perhaps we could say that the phrase is a metaphor for some pseudo-religious dogma about life being sacred.
They are not literally zombies on this issue, but they might as well be.
May 21, 2009 3:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. Sorry about that. Fixed now.
May 21, 2009 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
The many thousands of children who were abused, raped, humiliated, and otherwise mistreated in the disgusting system that went on in Ireland ( for one example) for how many generations -- would never have been available if they had been aborted. If unwanted fetuses are aborted, who will be available for predatory priests? Who will be sitting ducks in "Catholic Charity" homes? They depend on those who have no real advocates. They act like saints when Obama speaks at Notre Dame, but they were silent when their children were being abused.
The Catholic stance: from sperm and egg you are holy. You are wonderful! You are actually the only thing that keeps us going...
After that, you are just fodder for our pedofilic priests and their messages that will make you think YOU are the problem!
May 20, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, I'm a recovering Catholic who disagrees with the Church's stance on abortion and contraception and women in the clergy and a whole host of other things. But your comment is just so over the line of basic decency. Egads.
May 20, 2009 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think cville is referring to this report I just noticed on yahoo about the genuinely nightmarish and widespread abuse (including rape) that has gone on in Ireland for decades:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13573619&ch=4226714&src=news
Don't know if the link will work but it's worth checking out. Makes the priest abuse scandals here look like nothing.
May 20, 2009 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, CVille. I understand your anger. I read that New York Times article on Irish orphan abuse before I wrote my post and was thinking of writing instead about the disgusting hypocriscy of the Catholic Church and how they are still trying to hide it. The article mentioned how the report tried to get access to church archival documents, but the church stonewalled at every turn so they relied on the testimony of the abused. Simply unconscionable. Sociopathic, really. It makes me very angry too.
But on the positive side, there are loads of Catholics (priests and nuns included) who are people of good will and good works. I've worked with some on the immigration issue and also on the Obama campaign. They know about my position on abortion. I make no excuses for it and they have never asked me to.
The power structure in the church is deeply flawed. But some of those working in it are doing the best they can.
May 21, 2009 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cville Dem sometimes manifests the leftist equivalent of Fred Phelps.
May 21, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ouch.
May 21, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Count me in the firmly pro-choice, pro- contraception camp. The crazy thing is that many of those opposed to abortion, are also opposed to contraception. If they really care about reducing abortions then they should take a look at The Netherlands with the lowest abortion rate in the world.
http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_07/uk/apprend2.htm
May 20, 2009 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you're right, dijamo, because ultimately this is not about abortion or contraception for a lot of these people. It is about S-E-X and more specifically about women having S-E-X.
May 21, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
BS
May 21, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find your reply humorous considering in the post directly below mine you proceed to call abstinence a "moral evolution". Now, how is it not about sex again?
May 21, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because your comment implies that right-to-life folks are right-to-life only because they want control, and that is false. BS is for "baseless."
May 21, 2009 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You'll notice I did say "for a lot" not "all". Like these people for instance:
So now, it's not just "abortion", it's about "fertilization". I don't know what psychological processes in their mind are at work - if it's a need for "control" as you seem to think I'm implying or something else. Until these anti-abortion groups become "pro-contraception", I stand by my statement.
May 21, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not just be pro-responsibility?
Why lower the bar for what it means to be an ethical human being?
Taking responsibility for what one does is a cornerstone in that.
May 21, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no issue with that characterization at all. I'm sure we could both agree that in many instances being responsible equates to abstinence. There are also many instances where being responsible involves contraception...get back to me when the "pro-fertilization" crowd agrees with that.
May 22, 2009 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone else's dichotomy isn't reason to avoid a truth.
May 22, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Many are opposed to contraception the way it is taught by the left, which is "contraception only," and scoffing at abstinence.
Abstinence is about moral evolution away from the presumed sexual automaton model embraced so weirdly by the left.
I may not agree on the reasoning of those on the right about this issue, but I think on this issue, they have a lot more going for them in terms of honest humanitarianism than the left ever has.
Churches, for example, have provided so much support for the needy that you could not begin to add it up. However, the commenters here frequently accuse these same church going populations of not having enough compassion for the poor and therefore supposedly "causing" the poor to have higher abortion rates. This twisted thinking is what drives a wedge between right and left, religious and non, on this issue.
May 21, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Mike! Welcome to the debate. I've been expecting you.
I think you mischaracterize the left when you say that they scoff at abstinence. At the individual level, there are plenty of parents who would consider themselves liberal who counsel their children about waiting to have sex until they are emotionally equipped to handle it. But the thing is, sex is fun. It's really fun. Men like it. Women like it. Old people like it. Teenagers like it. You might as well try to stop the rotation of the earth as to stop people having sex.
So, while I don't know any parents who hand out condoms at the door as their high schoolers leave for the prom, I know plenty of parents who have included birth control and safe sex in discussions about whether or not having sex so young is a good idea. And good for them.
I've heard the argument that teaching your kids to be safe if they choose to have sex is the same as condoning the sex.
That's about as silly as the thought that telling your kids to call you if they're ever too drunk to drive is the same as condoning drinking.
It's about educating and protecting your kids from the things in life that can harm them. It's good parenting.
May 21, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Emotionally equipped? How about equipped to support a family? How about waiting until one's formal education is complete? How about waiting until married?
May 21, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Missing from your discussion is a parent anywhere telling their children not to have sex outside of marriage, before they're capable of supporting a family, and not to get drunk in public if they have any respect for other people, themselves, and the family.
Doing such things, no matter how fun they are, is really a sign of a lack of compassion for the persons one involves in the quest for fun. Real people get hurt. Not teaching the kids this means we're teaching them to experiment with selfishness as if it will not have repercussions in this short life.
The rule is: if you can't support a family you don't risk pregnancy. If you are driving, you don't drink and then drive.
Rules are there to protect minors, not hurt them. They want ground rules, instruction, advice and guidance. There will be plenty of times after they leave when they will have tough decisions to make and have to make them on their own.
As a minor, many of the things they do wrong must be answered by their parents. That is one reason parenthood is not a pure democracy. Thank God for that. In fact, that truth is one reason why for many, many decades we had a healthier democracy. Teachers grouse about it all of the time: 'if only these parents would do their job..." etc. etc.
Another fact is, children who are promiscuous in high school or whose parents wink at their party animal ways, often suffer academically and in life relationships. No one who winked at their dumb moves in high school will have to suffer their hard knocks afterward with them.
Also: so many parents hamstring themselves with the hypocrisy thing. Oh, I can't tell my kid not to do X or Y because I did it. Nonsense. Having done X or Y and knowing the liability of it means you can tell your kids to learn from your mistakes and improve on your record. Tell them the truth and tell them soberly about it. No one has to be a jerk about it, but just teach and hold them accountable with love.
May 21, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that it's not a bad idea to wait to get pregnant until you're finished with school and economically stable, but I couldn't care less about sex outside of marriage. That's your morality, not mine.
Look, a hundred years ago, people were getting married much earlier and they were still having sex prior to marriage. Four hundred years ago, they were having sex prior to marriage. Now, people are waiting to get married. You might want them to wait. Maybe you even waited yourself. I think that it's unrealistic. If I had kids, I'd be much more concerned with making them into kind, caring, good citizens than forcing them to subjugate a natural instinct.
May 22, 2009 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
The natural instinct is also a power that can be abused. Another reason to wait is to learn first not to abuse one's power before unleashing it.
May 22, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . . ah but we're the immediate gratification culture that believes what marketing has programmed us to believe.
There's a better way. I'm not saying anyone who hasn't found it should give up on it. I'm not saying those who have lost their way should not endeavor to find it. I'm not saying anyone is without sin. I'm saying that we must not lose sight of the ideals we are aiming at, or else we may not get to experience the greater benefits of reaching higher ideals through work, disappointment, blood, sweat and tears, if that makes sense.
May 22, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
But that's you, Mike.
I don't share those ideals. You are projecting them onto me and onto any number of people who don't share them. You are entitled to them and I have no problem with you having them. But when you try to fix me into your framework is where the problems start. I don't make decisions for you. You don't make decisions for me.
May 22, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you Orlando!
It would be nice if information like this could be presented on a wide public basis for people to digest and thus have a better grasp of what exactly is going on in this country when it comes to abortion. But the whole "debate" has for so long been reduced to screaming fanatical hysteria, particularly from the loony fringe of the pro-life movement that it actually has been about 25 years since there has been any real consideration, let alone debate, of the issue before the general public.
The fringe people are bad and they do nothing to advance any solutions to anything and now they have also determined that stemm cell research is abortion too so we'll never have an end to their emotional lunacy. The insistence on some religious denominations (Catholic and non) to push these extremist positions has poisoned everything in our politics, not just the issues directly associated with abortion, and that has hurt our country badly. The fundamentalist protestants and the Mormons are an embarassment in all respects, but I think the Roman Catholic Church in America has stooped to some really, really disgraceful tactics at times in recent years that really are beneath it.
If the right wing and their religious allies would stop, just for a while, and act like rational people, I think we could make tremendous progress on the issue. But, having observed their tactics and behavior since Roe v Wade was announced, I have absolutely no hope at all that they will ever act responsibly or rationally on this topic.
That's not to say there aren't rational and responsible people who are against abortion who are deserving of respect. It's just that those people aren't the ones who have hijacked the issue for the past 30 years.
May 20, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
You should say that the most extreme partisans are made into caricatures of entire constituencies by selective media coverage and selective interviews. The loonier in appearance, the more likely to be interviewed or captured with visuals.
All of this is irrelevant to whether or not abortion is wrong because it is killing innocent human life. Why is it tolerated?
Because (1) the killing is sanitized by invisibility by leftist ideology masquerading as the constitutional law of privacy, which privacy really means killing without witnesses other than the ones killing; (2) because some women want it, and women expect special treatment with regard to the two-parent involvement in children (she gets to choose, but he doesn't one way or another even though she'll bear the primary physical burden for 9 months, and he, voluntarily or by child support enforcement, will bear a labor burden for at least 18 years, or, the knowledge that strangers destroyed his unborn child;) (3) because abortion is really thinly veiled racist eugenics historically and currently, since "the poor" have replaced what Sanger once called the "inferior" breeds of people that the biggest donors to PP want to see "controlled."
These are the facts about hypocrisy from partisans who claim to be humanitarian but check that virtue at the door when it comes to those killings that no one sees and therefore do not associate with them and make them feel uncomfortable.
This is why those abortion protestors who show the reality of abortion's violence in public photos (free speech) do what they do: to cease allowing the left to make the victims invisible.
May 21, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, as a Christian I have a couple of issues about the way many on the right view abortion...maybe you could answer a couple of questions for me.
1) If life begins at conception, why do we not have Christian burials for the "child" who is miscarried at 6 weeks? or 14 weeks?
and 2) Let's face it, in comparison to Heaven, this world pretty much sucks...so if all these aborted "children" get to just go back home instead of having to live on this earth first, isn't that a good thing? Why force them to come here if they don't have to?
May 21, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose some do have Christian burials after miscarriages, or perhaps their own private memorials. I suspect that the burial of a miscarried unborn child would be too traumatic for many folks, especially those who have multiple miscarriages. Perhaps that is the reason.
Christian burials, cremations, throwing those lost into the sea, and other traditions are often a way of dealing with the remains of the lost while everyone remembers them. Miscarried children are not remembered by other than the folks, usually, and God always. They are no less real for it.
Have you noticed what a sudden rush of grace comes into your life when you stop the crazy pace and compulsion and notice someone? I mean really notice them, their reality and humanity, watching long enough to see them as a child? How if you could just reach out and rub the tiredness out of their eyes, the pain from their jaws and necks, the sob that lies deep in their chests but nearly never makes it into the light? Then, what if you just reach out to them and show them love? They become real. Before they were a passing shadow to you. Now they are real.
Do the children go to heaven? Heaven is a state of God. God Is in the least of these; God Is in children. Do their souls mature after they die? What language would they learn from God? In other words, is our life much more resident in other realms than this, such that growth is exponentially greater in ways we can't even imagine yet, veiled as we are in entropy, pain, and the dross of our own sin? My personal opinion is yes, children are of the Kingdom of Heaven. When we say "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," we are at once praying that children come to earth. Heaven is made of them, their laughter, and God's image is most visible in their souls. They are here to save the world if we would endeavor to see them, understand what they are, who they are, as our closest connection to God that we can touch, hear, see and converse with.
Who would abort helpless children becomes less than human because they try to murder God. They kill the ones who can help them.
One thing I don't think the libertine lobbyists realize is that teaching people to lust, covet and envy as a matter of liberation, marketing, and rebellion against religious limits will erode the character-based societal comforts that they now enjoy. Innocence saves us. God Is a Child eternally and an adult too, who saves us in real time as we in real time give admission to God the Child into our hearts, souls, minds and bodies.
May 21, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, I have no doubt that you are sincere in your beliefs...I am also sincere in mine. I believe with all my heart and soul that the choice to abort a pregnancy is between a woman, her doctor and her God...it is not a decision that I would EVER want to make for her.
Until someone can show me where in the Bible it says that life begins at conception (and believe me, I've tried to find it) I will not change my belief...
May 22, 2009 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Personally I know almost no one who is "pro-life" so I haven't encountered the "blank look". In several comment sections, particularly at WaPo, I have raised the "what then" matter many times. I frame it this way: If abortion is murder, then the doctor and the woman should both receive the customary penalty, i. e. long prison terms or execution. I have received no response, but I intend to keep at it.
Another one that seems to go by is this: I ask if anyone who so confidently claims that "life begins at conception" (I grant them that they really mean "human life" because both sperm and ovum are as alive as any cell) can cite me any Scriptural passage upon which this claim can be based. This is less important for Catholics, who base their position on Church teaching rather then the Bible, but for Protestants of the fundie flavor it is a legitimate point...and there is even a verse in Exodus 21 that seems to support the opposite conclusion: that a fetus is not a human being since the penalty for causing a miscarriage is not "a life for a life" but a fine.
Gary Wills in his book about the 1988 campaign "Under God" has a wealth of information on this very sore subject.
Full disclosure: I am an atheist who reads the Bible not only for the stories (some of which are pretty raw) but to know what is in it.
May 21, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
What then? Punishment should deter the crime. What would be a greater deterrent, putting a guy in prison and making him a martyr to those who are equally misled as he is? So he can make a book deal with a publisher who is politically like-minded?
Or, yanking his license to practice medicine and put him on probation with a restitution order that requires him to find professional employment outside the practice that pays enough for him to uphold his obligations and donate to a fund for single mothers.
Hold the institutions and professionals liable. What sentencing? I think that goes to traditional issues like mental state, unless it is made a strict liability offense where corporate entities are considered criminal. There are criminal enterprise laws, also.
Hold men liable who knowingly abandon women pregnant with their children and who knowingly abet. Make the sentence more serious for those same men who coerce or push for the abortion. Make the sentencing something which enables the individual offender to work and provide monetary support for the mother, prenatal care, neonatal care, child support, and if she has already had an abortion, post-abortion care.
For the woman, there is a problem with holding a mother to an intentional or knowing mental state standard in a situation so deeply involving her emotions and body, unless she is a serial aborter. Granted, she's responsible (outside of coercion) for the life she chances. However, policy should make the means of that responsibility something that mitigates the conditions, pressures, belief system or disadvantages that led to her bringing life into the world that she then allowed to be killed.
For instance, if a woman aborts (as Orlando points out) because she's afraid she can't provide, her lack of will to use or knowledge of existing support and educational upgrades available and financial aid etc. should be remedied by publicly subsidized education loans, an order to bring her education up to college degree level, and jail time if she doesn't continue and complete her education. If she's a drug addict or has other issues, those have to be addressed before the education track.
All of this can be court ordered. And, she has to help pay for her own improvement plus pay back a percentage of government funds spent on her even while the abandoning bio-father is equally charged with helping pay for this rehabilitation.
That's just a very cursory beginning of staking out a middle road on this issue.
The right-to-life issue is not at all a trivial issue because it's implications go from the unborn all the way to the war policies of the country.
May 21, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
my pov is I still believe we become human beings at around 7-8 wks after conception and ideally elective abortions should be done prior to that stage of pregnancy.
But as one with roots in the Baptist heritage, I believe in Democracy and the need to change hearts before trying to change laws and find such sorely lacking among prolife activists, who rhetoric aside, often fail to weigh the opportunity cost of their activism in terms of human lives saved from both immediate and ultimate death.
So ideally, what'd I love to see happen is for women who choose to be sexually active and do not wish to give birth to undertake the discipline of both using safe, contraceptive methods and testing themselves for pregnancy on a regular monthly basis and then if they become pregnant, electing to abort the pregnancy as soon as possible with as much protection from social shame as possible.
And I'd also like to see sex education classes linked to the study of the Brain as a sexual organ. I am drawing below on what I've learned from reading the work of Daniel Amen, MD. I think special attention should be given to the deeper limbic system portion of the brain. This is the portion of the brain that forms bonds between people. It is what forms a particularly strong bond between sexual partners, regardless of the casual or committed nature of their sexual intercourse.
The thing is that women apparently have bigger deeper limbic systems and thereby naturally greater potentials to form bonds with others. This is a good thing, but sadly when the bonds formed get ruptured, it makes the deeper limbic system become over-active and the overall brain system does not function as well. And so, sexual intercourse is aptly scientifically described as psychologically risky, regardless of the use of contraceptive technology. And it is even more so for females.
So, as a committed follower of Christ, I'd say my studies of the matter are:
1. Yes, hormones are very powerful and inevitably there will be premarital and extramarital intercourse.
2. There are ways to communicate this fact so that such happens less often and is dealt with sensitively in timely ways that bring less shame/harm to all involved parties.
3. Sexual intercourse is good, but it is not the end-all-be-all of the bonds we form with our neighbors and typically the health of marriages depend less on the level of fireworks in bed and more on the breadth and depth of the partners' other relationships/friendships.
4. We've become too sex-satiated in our consumer-driven culture and it's harming us in serious ways. The religious right perceive this fact but they wrongly lash out in a highly (and often intentionally) misdirected fashion against "wind-mills".
5. So we need all of the facts laid out and we need more empathy and less acrimony so we can truly have a debate on this most divisive of issues.
dlw
May 21, 2009 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for being a reasonable person. Seriously.
However, there is some important information that maybe you missed in Orlando's original post.
So part of what we are dealing with when you say you would like all women to undertake the discipline of both using safe, contraceptive methods and testing themselves for pregnancy on a regular monthly basis is that the problem doesn't involve discipline:
Poor women and teen-agers on their own can't afford these prices.
May 21, 2009 1:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Orlando writes:
QUOTE "No contraceptive method is 100% accurate, but the overwhelming majority of women who have abortions have either not used any contraception or have used it inconsistently. This only strengthens the theory that better education about, and availability of, contraceptives would reduce the number of abortions." UNQUOTE
There has been wall-to-wall education about and availability of contraceptives for decades and they're still not using them. You can go into a store to buy a coloring book for your kid and find condoms sitting right there next to Elmo. "Heck," they were even next to the ice cream sprinkles in Summer of '42.
The reason many poor women and men don't use contraceptives is not because they don't know about them or their availability. That is ludicrous. Of course they know. They don't use them because they don't want to.
In some cases, they don't use them because they've got other problems ... they are high or drunk and using contraceptives is no more likely to enter their minds than the fact that they shouldn't be sleeping with someone they hardly know.
Some of these people simply are not going to become more responsible unless they must.
May 21, 2009 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for sharing your point of view. I might add that men have a role to play in birth control. I agree that the early an abortion occurs, the better, but not because of the "when life begins" question. The longer a woman waits to have an abortion, the higher the risk to her health.
Here's a bit from the study that I didn't include in the main post:
SAFETY OF ABORTION
• The risk of abortion complications is minimal: Fewer than 0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.
• Abortions performed in the first trimester pose virtually no long-term risk of such problems as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or birth defect, and little or no risk of preterm or low-birth-weight deliveries.
• Exhaustive reviews by panels convened by the U.S. and British governments have concluded that there is no association between abortion and breast cancer. There is also no indication that abortion is a risk factor for other cancers.
• In repeated studies since the early 1980s, leading experts have concluded that abortion does not pose a hazard to women’s mental health.
• The risk of death associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy, from one death for every one million abortions at or before eight weeks to one per 29,000 at 16–20 weeks—and one per 11,000 at 21 or more weeks.
• Fifty-eight percent of abortion patients say they would have liked to have had their abortion earlier. Nearly 60% of women who experienced a delay in obtaining an abortion cite the time it took to make arrangements and raise money.
• Teens are more likely than older women to delay having an abortion until after 15 weeks of pregnancy, when the medical risks associated with abortion are significantly higher.
I'd guess that there are a couple of reasons teens delay the decision. First, it's a pretty momentous decision and the fact that they are young and don't necessarily know their own minds yet could make it difficult to decide. And second, if they have to raise the money, travel to another county or another state, all the while hiding it from their parents, it could take longer to prepare.
May 21, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm. I did a block quote, but in case it's not obvious, all the bullet points are from the Guttmacher report.
May 21, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good one, O.
Check that DagBlog link though.
May 21, 2009 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
What can I say? Not so good with the math. Not so good with the links. Fixed now. Thanks for catching it.
May 21, 2009 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another statistic:
Americans would be better off if 100% of them minded their own damn business
Too often those with the most screwed up lives or families think they can tell everyone else how to run their life.
May 21, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
How about if 98% of Americans minded their own business... and the other 2% just sortof checked up on them from time to time, offered a bit of friendly advice, you know, insights selected from their own hard-won experience or maybe Luke 3:11, maybe handed out some useful forms, relevant excerpts from the Criminal Code, and only very occasionally threatened to throw them in jail?
We could get the Government to pay for them, maybe give them special uniforms, call them the "Helping You To Mind Your Own Damn Business Properly Brigade."
May 21, 2009 1:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
No government at all then. A radical libertarian. I never considered you one. I guess you'd also be against taxing all of us to pay for someone else's abortion, and the notion that people sink or swim on their own power.
May 21, 2009 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's sort of a case of "pay me now, or pay me later." It's much cheaper to pay for an abortion now than to pay for all the social ills that occur as a result of children being born to children, or to people who don't want them, or to those who should never have been parents to begin with.
The day we get to chose where our own tax dollars go is going to be a terrifying day, indeed.
May 21, 2009 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
You find a way to fix the problems without a pre-emptive killing doctrine that pro-abortion rights is.
Pro-abortion rights groups believe in pre-emptive killing of the innocent to avoid their speculative suffering, and that without even a trial; without individual rights; without an ad litem for the defenseless human identity about to be destroyed.
There is nothing at all civil libertarian about elective abortion as birth control.
May 22, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I need some help with a math problem here, please. One of the frequent commenters on this issue (Mike7Woodson) believes there is an abortion industry and providers are getting rich off of it.
Since this information seems to be scarce, I'm reduced to putting numbers in a calculator, a practice I try to avoid no matter what. So here is what I know from Orlando's post:
No. of providers. 1,787
Ave. cost of abortion. $413.00
1.2 million abortions/year
With Wolfram's help I came up with $235,967 per provider/year. But who knows if I asked Wolfie the right questions. Math genius needed please!
May 21, 2009 2:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ooops, forgot to say good blog, Orlando. Thanks!
May 21, 2009 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seashell, provider obstetricians that choose to abort unborn human life likely do so as an incident to the overall obstetrics practice. A clinic specializing in abortions will see the largest share of those cases. Your comment ignores the concentration of cases at clinics specializing in the lethal procedure.
May 21, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Orlando!
Gender inequality anyone? Two (or three) Americas?
The rich, the poor, and then there’s us damned women.
So difficult to control.
Abortion is safe and legal and a conscious choice.
The main reason we are talking about this is
because we don’t have public healthcare.
Free contraceptives should be provided in schools,
all public transport systems, and yes, even at rest stops.
“Unexpected sex” is my favorite statistic
and I’m sorry to see the numbers decline.
I loved the sixties.
Accidents and their consequences
don’t make women bad.
People can stay out of my business now.
May 21, 2009 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent post. The facts tell the real story and you presented them brilliantly.
May 21, 2009 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are much more articulate that I, Orlando. Great post!
May 21, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your wisdom is unmatched. I have to put on sunglasses to read your blog. I would like to send you money, but can't figure out how. Thank you for everything you do.
May 21, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Send it here:
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
434 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001
May 21, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
A nice post with lots of useful information. Having said that a few comments,
1) Orlando attributes what few late term abortions there are to issues of the health of the mother. Certainly that is one cause. I wonder whether an equal or even larger proprotion are driven by the health of the fetus. Having read the anecdotes surrounding the late term abortion debates, particularly from the offended pro-lifers whose doctors recommended procedures, the examples tend to be essentially cases of euthanasia, fetuses that would die slowly and painfully if brought to term. So I do wonder if in practice the partial birth abortion debate is really one about eutanasia that neither side wants to frame in that way for some reason.
The second point is that there is an assumption here that the goal of the pro-life movement is to reduce the number of abortions, but this may reflect a difference in world view between the two views. The pro-choice side is largely consequentialist. The pro-life side is largely made up of proponents of virtue ethics. That is to say that good people are the people who have certain character traits. And a good country is one that has certain principles. (I don't pretend to know how supporting torture fits here). So, on this view, making abortion illegal is much more important that reducing the number of abortions. As long as we as a country allow abortion we are a bad country. The numbers being somewhat irrelevant. The morality of a serial killer hardly turns on how many he has managed to kill. Or put more directly, a serial killer does not become more moral just because we become better at preventing him from finding victims.
Finally, on the argument made in some of the responses about punishment, it is not really incoherent to think that making something illegal is more important than the punishment. It is not my view of the law, but the virture theorists are more likely to think that the law serves the purpose of saying what we as a society find acceptable and unacceptable. Maybe 20% of the country thinks that abortion is murder. The rest of the pro-life crown thinks it is bad in some more nebulous way. And they think that society should mark what is bad with its laws. That is why they supported unenforcable laws against homosexual sex, not because they wanted to punish it, or even prevent it. They just wanted the law to acknowledge that society does not approve. Not a good view, but a fully conherent one.
May 21, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think your second point is really important to understanding how there is very little hope of ever finding common ground on this issue. Any sort of ethics disucssion is a subjective powder keg.
May 21, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is indeed. As Lisa Miller wrote in Newsweek:
The left wants to reduce demand for abortion; the right wants to reduce supply.
The difference in policy making comes down to funding. Do we fund sex education and family planning clinics or do we fund organizations that promote and help with adoptions?
I'm not sure why we just don't fund both and move on.
May 21, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Because then neither side would be able to claim total victory.
May 21, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a good point, Orlando. Hadn't thought of it that way. My goal is for women to have easy and affordable access to health care and birth control and to keep Roe v. Wade legal. Claiming victory probably wasn't on the list.
That Randall Terry is a stinker, isn't he?
May 21, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The comment from MIller is actually a very different one than the one I made that Orlando was responding to.
If the goal was reducing the number of abortions, then it would be fair to capture it as reducing demand vs reducing supply. But that does not really capture either side very well. The left wants to reduce the number of women who would choice to have an abortion because that is a bad situation to be in. So reducing the demand is actually more important than reducing the number of abortions. There is no virtue in reducing the supply because that just means that women with bad choices have what they may consider the least bad among them taken away.
On the other side, reducing the supply is not the goal in itself for the right. Making women who get pregnant bare the consequences of their actions (as they understand this concept) is the goal. Outlawing abortion would be a means towards this end. Reducing supply would be another means.
Also it should be noted that while there is no reason not to fund both sex education and family clinics as well as promoting and helping with adoption, these all come in on the demand side (and in fact were all included in the Obama speech at Notre Dame).
Reducing supply means making there be fewer doctors willing to perform abortion so that women who would choose to have abortions performed do not have that option. There is no reason that the left should join in attempts to limit supply.
May 21, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or we could just pass a law that says any man who impregnates a woman who does not want to carry a child to term gets to go to prison for 20 years...I wonder how many unwanted pregnancies there would be then?
May 21, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the best rejoinder I've heard, stilli. You rawk!
May 22, 2009 2:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Shellie...I was pretty impressed with it myself, but it hasn't gotten any traction!
May 22, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, you are proposing that having unprotected intercourse is a crime, only for the man, and that it should be punishable by 20 years in prison?
In Charlottesville, there was a law student who stabbed a young man who was an EMT at our fire department 21 TIMES. The EMT died of his wounds, and the jury found that it might have been self-defense even though the other guy had no weapon. The jail time was less than 5 years. The guy who murdered this young man had a history of violent behavior, but his father is a wealthy lawyer and bought off his former girlfriend, who ended up not testifying even though she had been a victim of this guy as well.
So... 20 years for having sex. What if his girlfriend has taken precautions and they don't work? What if she says she has taken precautions but she didn't?
I hope your suggestion was a joke. I couldn't tell.
May 22, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I was trying to be cute...I'm so sick of all these men trying to tell women what to do w/ their bodies...
May 23, 2009 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I rec'ed this when you put it up, but couldn't think of anything to add to the discussion.
Until now.
The reality is, abortion is the last, worst option. And yet, one that can not be removed from the list.
May 21, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Old Grouch on the reality of abortion being the worse option but we must have it as an option. Let's not go back to days when it was illegal and women and children sought out back room doctors or people who didn't have a license to practice. Many inuries and deaths ocurred. The horror of it all is too difficult to fathom. Safe abortions are certainly better than the old practices before Rowe vs. Wade.
May 21, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that's a really important point. Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion. It will only endanger women's lives. Lonbecker made the point that the pro-life point of view is that it doesn't matter that women have abortions so much that we as a society codify our ethical objections to it.
So, fine. I object to abortion. I think it's a horrible choice to have to make and I wish that nobody ever had to make it. I wish that everyone had access to birth control and sex education. I wish that everyone who found themselves unintentionally pregnant could be certain that they would have adequate prenatal care and medical and emotional support throughout their pregnancy. I wish that every woman who carried a baby to term would have time off from work to spend with the infant. I wish that when she returned to work, she would have affordable day care and health care.
Frankly, I think that if we could realize the goals of health care reform and education reform, have better paid leave policies, and make sure that everyone was paid a living wage, it would go further toward reducing the number of abortions than any other actions we could take.
But then, at that point, there will still be women who choose to terminate pregnancies. Do I wish they wouldn't? It's absolutely immaterial what I wish. Their body, their choice. For me, that's the end of the story.
May 21, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
My comments above were taken as angry and negative, and rightly so. I made them in the context of the news out of Ireland, which told of unbearable crimes, humiliation, and more that was committed against an unheard and unrespected thousands of children who also had absolutely no one listening to them.
Children who were raped, beaten, and treated as slaves; some of them from the time of infancy because they were unwanted bastards. Their mothers' fates were at least as bad.
If you want to call me angry, I plead, "guilty."
I heard the holier-than-thou clergy complain about the audacity of Barack Obama speaking at Notre Dame, a jewel in the crown of the Catholic Church!
The crimes that went on in Ireland had been swept under the rug for decades -- they didn't care! In fact, they coerced the people who brought these crimes to light to keep the names of the criminals who abused these thousands of children, shielded.
You can say what you want about me. I don't care. But the Catholic Church continues to pretend to care about children by saying that abortion is evil, but at the same time, they send thousands of living, breathing children into a torturous pergatory of their own making and they don't give a damn! In fact it is worse than that -- they cover it up to protect their own sins.
May 21, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Audacity of Hope meets the Audacity of Pope meets the Audacity of Dope.
May 21, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, there's no reason to be a jerk. CVille has a right to her anger. The people who have the nerve to preach to the world what is and isn't moral are often not living what they preach. Certainly, in the case of the report out of Ireland this week, this is the case.
I am in total agreement with CVille with one exception. There are millions of Catholics in the world. Not all of them are evil hypocrites and some of them actually do their best to live their morality. I don't agree with their morality, but I have respect for people who know what they believe and live by it.
May 22, 2009 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Orlando, I shouldn't criticize Cville's honesty. She candidly says what most in the pro-choice movement will not about their ideology: they believe in pre-emptive killing to avoid human suffering. We all know this only discriminates as to who suffers, and that suffering goes around eventually. Where have we seen that before?
May 22, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did she not say the Irish children would not have suffered if they'd been aborted?
Don't you see that for every evil in the world that eugenicists use as a reason to kill unborn children, they capitulate to that evil? Don't you see that they are sacrificing these children at the altar of learned helplessness?
Two evils do not make a good.
May 22, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm sorry. I don't see it that way.
Don't you see that I have free will to do what I want with my own body?
No, I know you don't see it that way. And I respect your passionate belief. I do. But my belief that I cannot make decisions about anyone else's health and body is no less passionate.
May 22, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The unborn child is not your body or it would have your identical DNA.
May 23, 2009 2:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are over 600,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S.; I'm sure the Irish are going to be really concerned what we think about them.
May 22, 2009 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
..originally posted in response to Oleeb's comment above:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/orlando/2009/05/the-abortion-debate.php#comment-3474043
May 22, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink