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 Monday, April 24, 2006
How Pro-Choice is Pro-Choice Enough?
Cristina says: If instead the pro-life movement were in fact interested in reducing abortion, pro-life policymakers would take note that the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world are also the ones that have adopted the strongest pro-choice policies and have made contraception widely available, if not free. How much more pro-choice do you want America to be? Abortion is legal throughout pregnancy, indeed right down to the moment the baby is coming down the birth canal. We have one of the most liberal abortion laws of any industrialized countries. According to Ramesh Ponnuru's new book (and he is quoting a Center for Reproductive Rights publication here) The UK generally limits abortion to the first 24 weeks...In Sweden, tne National Board of Health and Welfare has to sign off on abortions past the 18th week.... In Denmark, a hospital committee must approve abortions past the 12th week. France requires women seeking abortions within the first 14 weeks to get counseling and observe a one-week waiting period. After 14 weeks, two physicians have to determine that contineud pregnancy poses a grave risk to a woman's health or that fetal impairment is very likely. Contraception is widely available, and socially acceptable. In some cases, children as young as fourth grade recieve publicly funded instruction on how to use contraception. Do you seriously believe we could reduce the abortion rate in this country with more aggressive pro-choice policies? I don't. posted by Dr J Roback Morse at 1:31 PM | link 
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It would also be nice if Cristina mentioned the fact that the residents of the most pro-choice states (such as California and New York) often have the highest abortion rates.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute recently rated California #1 overall and New York #5 overall with regards to contraceptives yet New York (Cristina's place of residence) and California residents have probably the highest abortion rates of the states (we can't be sure of California because the state hasn't required abortion providers to report abortions for almost a decade).
Both New York and California's abortion rates are probably in the 30's per 1000 women aged 15-44 while the national average is below 20 with some states like South Dakota (ranked 44th with regards to contraceptives) being as low as 6 per 1,000.....
If Cristina is right - that contraception is the most effective way of preventing abortion then why is it that the residents of two states which do great with contraception according to the pro-choice AGI have such high abortion rates while other states which do poor with regards to contraceptives have exponentially lower abortion rates?
The reality is that if a state uses tax-dollars to pay for abortions (like California and New York do) that state will have a much higher abortion rate than if it doesn't. Unfortunately, pro-choice groups like NARAL New York want tax-funded abortions.
If Cristina is actually concerned about the number of abortions in America, it would be nice if she honestly examined the policies of various states instead of taking cheap "prolifers want to ban contraceptives" shots at prolifers.
The question then is:
If American abortion policy is as liberal (or more so) than socialist countries (like Sweden), and nations with liberal abortion laws correlate with low levels of abortion, what accounts for higher than expected levels of abortion in the United States?
Not to mention that correlation doesn't equal causation. As if there are no other factors that might explain why Sweden has a lower teen pregnancy and abortion rate than various Third World countries.
Anonymous, who said that was the question? The premise that Libertine social policy equals lower abortion rates is a pro-choice premise, not a pro-life premise.
How much more liberal on contraception trainining and abortion do we need to be?
Liberal enough to get the abortion rate down.
OTOH I can see why we need more Republican Socialism. Being a criminal is not near profitable enough. The Republicans need to create more opportunities for criminals. Isn't that what the opportunity society is all about?
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