Surprised? So was I when I found all this stuff out. Take a look at how and why this is true:
4. The legality and availability of abortion does not change abortion rates. According to international data, South America and Africa both have abortion rates near the international average, despite harsh laws against it throughout most of both continents. What does change with illegality, is the deadly dangerousness of the procedure. Death due to complications of abortion account for about 13% of all deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and almost all of those happen in countries where the procedure is illegal. Making abortion illegal doesn’t save any babies, it just kills women.
3. Abortion rates DO change when effective contraception is cheaply and widely available. Abortion in Europe is generally and broadly available, but the western half actually has the lowest abortion rates in the world, 12 per 1,000 child-bearing-age women, while the eastern half has the highest rates in the world, 43 per 1,000. The difference? The Pill! Something the pro-life side is mostly, adamantly against.
2. Why would pro-life be anti-Pill? Women on The Pill kill fewer zygotes than women who are trying to get pregnant! A woman’s body flushes out fertilized eggs about 17% of the time off The Pill, and 100% of the time on it. However, since women on The Pill release about seventy times fewer eggs (about 1.5%) than women off The Pill, the numbers actually favor The Pill as the zygote-saving alternative. There is even an increasing pile of evidence that suggests the morning-after pill may not ever actually flush fertilized eggs out after all, as they currently have to warn you on the box. Pro-lifers have no good reason for their stand against The Pill, or even the morning-after pill, if their primary concern is saving the unborn!
1. Policies that make being a parent easier drive down abortion rates. 75% of women getting abortion cite inability to afford the child amongst their reasons for doing it. Another answer that was equally popular, was being unable to work, go to school, or care for a dependent. Yet in the current pro-life=conservative, pro-choice=liberal paradigm, pro-life, conservative politicians are on record in the statehouses and the U.S. Congress again and again, REMOVING money for programs that aid low-income pregnant women, making their babies less affordable to have. The way to reduce abortions is to give women support during their pregnancies and childcare after. And you’ll only find those policies supported on the pro-choice/liberal side of politics.
If you are truly pro-life because you want to save the unborn, you should probably switch your allegiances to pro-choice, the side that is TRULY for Life: before, during, and, in biggest contrast with the other side, AFTER pregnancy. The primary interest of the pro-life movement seems to be punishing women for ever spreading their legs in the first place. Disturbingly, even in cases of rape, recently.
All information for this list (and many of the links) was culled from a much longer article called “How I Lost Faith In The “Pro-Life” Movement”, by Libby Anne. If you liked anything I had to say here, you should go to the real deal and thank her! If you find any problems, that’s probably my fault.
(edit: 12/1/12) For some real-world proof that effective contraception decreases abortion, see this article about abortion incidence in the U.S.
. . . . .
Bonus Mini-Article: Some Thoughts About Murder
I don’t think any pro-choice person is truly pro-abortion. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m pro-choice even though I personally think in at least some cases abortion is murder (not that my thoughts are all that important since as a man and a gay one at that I am doubly removed from ever having to be part of that decision). A lot of people want to say “abortion is murder”, as if that made it black-and-white, and settled the matter. Not me, because murder isn’t exactly ‘murder’ either! There is premeditated murder, second degree murder, vehicular homicide, murder in self defense, all kinds of different forms of murder! What if we gave the death penalty for anyone who murdered another, EVEN IN SELF DEFENSE? When “abortion=murder” is proclaimed, it does NOT make things black-and-white, it becomes enormously complex. You have to consider the moral relevance of every abortion scenario: from the many, different, severe and lethal birth defects possible, to certain cultures where there is honor-killing.
Murder isn’t always Murder One. Sometimes it’s in self defense. Sometimes it was a freak accident. We don’t give the death penalty or even life without parole (my preference) for all murder because there would be no justice in it. As far as I can see, that is the huge flaw in the abortion=murder, black-and-white position of most pro-lifers. Without examining cases, and finding the complexities and subtleties of every abortion scenario, they can never achieve true justice in their judgement. So I just don’t.
For a pro-choice analysis of the Bible, I invite you to take a look at this article. While the linked article did not form any content of the one you’re reading, it is a good read on its own, especially if you are Christian, or if you know any. And follow one or two of its links too!
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Okay, wait. You said in point #2:
‘A woman’s body flushes out fertilized eggs about 17% of the time off The Pill, and 100% of the time on it.’
That is incorrect. Birth control pills prevent ovulation from happening, so no fertilized eggs are flushed out.
Seriously do some freaking research. You still ovulate and get your period on the pill. The pill just makes it difficult for a fertillized egg to attach to the uterus. That’s what the week of reminder pills that are inactive are for. . . so you have your period.
Good post. I learn something new and challenging on websites I stumbleupon on a daily basis.
It’s always useful to read through articles from other authors and use a little something from other web
sites.
This article seems to make it like there’s only two sides. Like you have to buy one whole package, or the other, and that if you think birth control should be available, you have to think abortion should be legal. But that’s just not true. It’s not a two-side issue, it’s a multifaceted issue. Especially when you include all the various related issues mentioned in this article.
Before I came out I had a couple of times when a condom broke, this was before next day pregnancy tests, so I got to spend an anxus month hopping I’d bleed, and if I was late, which I was often I got to have the fun of peeing on a stick. I have to say the idea of having a baby was never an option I considered viable, and adoption wouldn’t have been a solution for my reasons. It is deffinetly a reason that would be controvercial even to pro-life people. I have a genetically inhareted learning disability and birth defect I won’t pass on. Now that I am out and the possability of having a child with another woman as a surrogate came up. I said the only way I would ever have a baby born in that situation was if the woman I was with wanted to have a child with her own egg, otherwise I’ll adopt. I don’t have some eugenix notion that I want to keep people with genetoc conditions from procreating, but its another thing when its your own DNA that would cause it.
Wow. I completely and totally agree with everything you’ve said. I especially agree with your bonus point about the modality of “murder”. I’ve been researching the arguments of pro-choice vs pro-life and it’s so great to come across someone with valid arguments! It’s just so frustrating when their only rebuttal is “It’s simple. It’s morally wrong. Just cause I said so.”
Well done on the justification with statistics as well; first site I’ve seen that offers numbers.
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This article still doesn’t change the fact that pro-choice people are murderers and that abortion deserves the same treatment as slavery, genocide, and the holocaust deserve.
Exodus 21:22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.”
Yeah, it’s O.T. But it’s the closest thing in the Bible there is to abortion mentioned at all. Notice the proportionality of the punishment automatically removes the fetus from the status of personhood, because there was no death penalty.
Hmmm, something Jesus never had anything to say about, AND with a biblical demonstration of the non-personhood of the fetus…and He said HOW many words about the poor? I think those overly focused on either gays or abortion are truly missing badly on that whole WWJD thing.
Being a person who leans libertarian, and who is very aware that making abortion legal saves lives (see point four above) while also being strongly pro-life (for the the not yet born and the already born both) does NOT make me a murderer.
Good article, but i still have to vie for right to life, and pro-life. The little teeny tiny person inside cannot express his/her voice. In this world, there is no choice except that of their mother.
So many women (not all of course) have been hurt by their choice to abort. That being said, each child has a destiny. We ALL have a destiny.
Denise, please do continue to fight for life! Life is worth fighting for! But if you absorbed what I had to say in my article, then you’ll understand that just being anti-abortion won’t save any babies. If you want to save babies, then do what you can as a volunteer, and at the ballot box, to support motherhood and contraception. If “a woman’s personal responsibility” to keep her legs snapped shut like a well-oiled bear-trap becomes your concern at this point, as is the case for so many who take your side of this argument, then you are concerned with style over substance, with shaming women over saving lives.
Wow this article is self-defeating. Of course the abortion rates for Africa and South America are high even though they have harder laws on abortion. They cant as easily afford to have a child as other areas. And of course the rates in Eastern Europe are higher than Western Europe. Because if the pill is easier to get in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, then there are less accidental pregnancies in Western Europe and therefore less abortions.
I’ve been looking and looking at your comment to figure out what to say to you. I can’t figure it out. You call my article “self-defeating”, whatever that means, and then continue on to corroborate two of the points of my article! That to TRULY cut down on abortion, the only ways to do it are to make contraception available, and to make motherhood viable. Your commentary about S.A., Africa, and E. and W. Europe only serves to prove my points.
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Wonderful article Thomas.. kzottarelli says it best….Love her post
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I’ve gone round and round on this subject.. since 1970’s when roe v. wade first appeared.. i was only 10 years old.
No. 1 dont tell me what to do with my body unless you also can conceive.. so we have just eliminated half the population out there who can comment (and you addressed that and I thank you for that)
No. 2. dont bring your relgion into this discussion… because it ends with how you relate to you higher power or god whatever you choose to call upon….and that’s between you and God.
No. 3 Let’s face it people.. some people where not born to procreate!.. my GOD… some of the most loving and interesting people cannot procreate… albeit for whatever reasons…
No. 4 Its really non of your damn business what I do with my body if it doesnt affect you.. so story closed..
dose that mean I dont have to pay for hers that until now I thought were ours
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I am far from pro-choice but i am pro education and support. i think that contraceptives should be widely available and teens/preteens (whatever the terms are) be educated about their bodies and their reproductive cycles, etc. i also think that government should take care of those that can’t help themselves. it’s what makes me want to vote ndp in canada. am i a socialist? very much so i think if the support systems are readily available there should be no need for abortions in most cases. but im not completely against abortion. incest and rape are very different circumstances.
Right on, Ashley! It sounds like you get the point of my article, which is that you don’t have to be pro-choice to support pro-choice POLICIES, as they are actually pro-life!
And you brought up another element that I could have put into the article as a fifth reason (I still might, and credit you on the edit)! Pro-choice/liberal policies toward sex education results in fewer teens actually having sex, more contraceptive use when they do, and therefore, FEWER ABORTIONS.
Adopted children commit suicide at 4 times the normal rate. Knowing that, pro-life=pro suffering and death 25%of the time.
Infanticide also increases in areas where abortion isn’t available.
This is not a simple issue.
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Nice job Thomas.
This is ridiculous. Abortion is MURDER. Plain and simple.Choose ADOPTION.
LEH and anna, WHEN is abortion murder? From conception onward? I have a problem with that, because it does a piss-poor job of exploring the ensoulment of twins. I firmly do not believe that you are murdering a person at a stage of life so early that if you shook Mom up real hard instead of aborting, you’d end up with twins! That’s not a baby, that is a highly potent collection of stem cells. I definitely believe that it is murder at the point where the fetus could conceivably live outside Mom. Somewhere between those two times, early and late, is a whole lot of philosophy, morality, and judgement!
…But even there at the end, when I definitely believe abortion is murder, I still think you have to look at the cases. Who is doing this? I found out that women with severe and fatal fetal deformations, women who have other health conditions (such as complications of chemotherapy) making it dangerous to carry a baby, and molested girls under the age of 13 account for the overwhelming majority of these cases, and so I STILL don’t see the need to get all judgey.
If that’s the case, and life starts at conception, and everything happens according to God’s plan, then god murders an unborn child every time a woman has a miscarriage.
Thank you Hannah! That is truth. If life begins at conception, then God kills LOTS of babies. A third of pregnancy ends in miscarriage. A bit more than 10% of fertilized eggs never even implant! Where is the pro-life money being put into saving some of these poor, doomed lives? If it really is about life, and not about something else, like slut-shaming, then where’s the pro-life money that should be going to actually save a real life baby or two?
“I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m pro-choice even though I personally think in at least some cases abortion is murder ”
After reading your article, I am very curious to know why you think that. I see that as an argument anti-choicers would latch on to “See? Even the pro-choicers *know* that it is murder!”
Love you Thomas for sticking up for us girls and our bodies!! They talk about woman having abortions like it is an adventure, or a holiday for us and we all can’t wait to be having one; or that none of us think or have any feeling about it, and maybe some women don’t. But for the most part women don’t take it lightly, and trust me it is no day in the park, it is a horrible, degrading experience.
So thank you for adding your intelligence and your Thomsense..I thought this is great!!
You bring up something I wished I could shoehorn into my article–that casual abortions are exceedingly rare. For most, it is heart-wrenching. But I couldn’t fit it into the overall structure of either the article or the bonus, both of which benefit from being very specific in their topic. The first article requires the info to feed into the theme of pro-choice saving more babies than pro-life (if I’d found anything about the two camps that said different, persuasively, I’d have included that too and had a great argument on my hands–and a longer article!), and the second is very firmly stated to be my personal thoughts and reflections.
So thank you very much for putting that thought in my comments!