Asymmetrical Information

You are ignoring the perfect users who still get pregnant. Suppose there are 60 million sexually active fertile women. If they all use condoms for birth control that is 1.8 million unwanted pregnancies. Even using the pill it is .3 million.

Responsibility isn't inconsistent with getting an abortion, however. In fact, in many cases, it is the most responsible thing to do. Let's not use "responsibility" as a code word for forcing someone to have a pregnancy that they don't want. If you really want to stop treating people like children, let them be responsible for whatever decision they make and don't allow the government to interfere with it. If a person wants to terminate a pregancy via abortion, let her be responsible for the consquences.

I've read quite a few stat that say that the presence of abortion as viable option has only a miniscule downward effect on fertility. If abortion were made illegal, the pregnancy rate would drop by slightly less than the aborion rate and fertility would rise slightly, if history is any guide, though how much of this is due to more responsible tbirth control or less sex I don't know.

What I find to be most interesting is that women outside of committed couples are still getting surprised by pregnancy. In this day of AIDS, when sex can be a form of slow Russian Roulette, either the condom barriers are not working or they are not being used. This does indeed beg the question: "What are people thinking?"...obviously not about the right things.

Also note that not all pregnancies which result from contraceptive failure lead to abortions. Our immediate reaction to the busted condom (due not to petroleum based lubricant but to none at all) was to consider that maybe it was in fact time to start a family. After all that other hippie couple we knew, farther out than we were, had produced a pretty well adjusted child. Twenty seven years later I still figure we made the right choice.

Individual instances do not make a general case, but I do keep bringing up whenever I see this debate my sister, who had an unplanned pregnancy after a tubal ligation (carried the baby to term), and after a second tubal ligation, had a second unplanned pregnancy (also carried the baby to term, at great risk to her life--the reason for the tubals).

Fertility can be stronger than technology.

I'm told that more than half of the people getting abortions are repeat customers...

I have a question for Jane about the interpretation of this sentence, because it makes a big difference.

Is it

A) Half of all abortions performed are on women who have had (or will have) multiple abortions.

or

B) Half of all women who have abortions will have multiple abortions.

I ask because if you mean A, then you imply that irresponsible behavior is responsible for about half of the abortions. But if you mean B, then you could mean that much more than half, perhaps 75% or 80%, are caused by irresponsible behavior.

I guess I'm also just a little wary of "I've been told" citations. I've used them before myself, but it smacks of common (but false) wisdom.

If paying attention to really rather simple instructions, which are included right in the box, is truly beyond your abilities, then you need to be in a state home where you can be taken care of like the mental infant you are.

You're ignoring an uncomfortable truth here: a reasonably large fraction of the citizenry cannot read a label, nor even if told what it says, reliably follow the instructions. Illiterate, and stupid people.

Illiterate and stupid women account for a vastly disproportionate share of abortions. Don't believe me? Go check out any study on rates of abortion. It is highly correlated with subgroups of women with low IQ - black, latina, low-income. I.e. this paper : http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.html
I don't know of any specific attempt to correlate measured IQ with abortion (it would be highly un-PC), but certainly "freakonomist" Steve Levitt's idea (that legal abortion cut crime) relies on it for its intuitive force.

Abortion rates among college-educated women approach the levels of perfect-use contraceptive failure.

So you are left with two groups here. One is, women who really did just get unlucky. The condom broke. The other are women who didn't use a condom because, in the heat of passion, they were willing to believe their boyfriend when he told them that they don't need protection if they do it with the female superior.

Now, perhaps you do believe that women that dumb should be institutionalized. But I should hope not. For one thing, it's very expensive to institutionalize people. For another, we just don't do that - stupid people have rights just as much as you or I.

Jane, there's a huge gap between "mental infant" and you. Just because you are perfectly capable of running your life without unintended pregnancy doesn't mean every woman is. People make mistakes.

Dan - if you read the link I posted above on the Guttmacher site, you'll see that as of 2000 they estimate 48% of American women who have an abortion have had one or more previously. Guttmacher is, IMO, pretty objective, but if anything they are pro-choice; since that stat is fairly damning to women who abort I'd guess it's on the level.

I personally believe that, except in special circumstances where the life of the mother is threatened, abortion is a despicable process. Now, before anyone starts throwing stones at me on the misunderstanding that I am a religious bigot, that is far from the truth. I have very little respect for religiousity and its fellow travellers. I believe that abortion is a violation of the natural order of life.

So, my suggestions are these:

1. Ban all abortions, except in the case of REAL medical issued which could threaten the life of the mother.

2. Force people to accept the results of their actions. Abortion should not be used as an insurance policy against the negative results of not keeping your legs closed or junior in your pants.

3. If the parents do not want the child, put it up for adoption. There are many people who are longing to adopt babies.

4. Do not financially support any organization providing abortions. Abortions provided for medical reasons could be covered by insurance or Medicare.

Leonard: I think the CDC would be even more evenhanded than any cite you can think of, and their stats for the same year are as follows:

In 2000, of women who obtained an abortion and whose number of previous abortions was adequately reported, 53% were reported to have obtained an abortion for the first time. Eighteen percent of women were reported to have had two or more previous abortions (Table 13).

Let us remember that information is not required to be given.

"I'm told" is not my idea of a good cite, Megan, and you should know better than to use it.

I'm afraid talking about the numbers is ultiamtely neither here nor there. The fact that relatively few are affected by a rule can be spun either way: since its so few, screw 'em, vs if it's so few, why not let 'em slide? Assuming it has to be all or nothing wrt abortion, that is -- in fact that is precisely why people talk about making exceptions (widely supported ones) in the first place.

You mentioned emergency contraception. I want to point out that it is a misnomer and Planned Parenthood's distinction on their website between it and "medical abortion" is very deceptive. What they are calling medical contraception also works by preventing an already fertilized egg (zygote) from implanting. They make a fine distinction that that is not an "abortion" since the woman is not "pregnant" (apparently not implanted). For women perusing their site who would use birth control to prevent fertilization but would draw a line at interfering afterward, the deliberate deception is particularly disturbing.

I'd also add that on their site you will not find ANY drawings or pictures showing even a fetus in the uterus -- not doing anything to risk a potential customer (and future $$ donor?) changin g their mind is top priority over providing women with truly complete information to help them make a difficult decision.

Meryl Yourish, it looks like your data agree with Leonards: you say that "53% were reported to have obtained an abortion for the first time," while he says that 48% have had one or more previously. Off by 1% isn't bad at all.

Re: Responsibility

This is highly relevant to AIDS as well. In this day and age there is very little chance of getting AIDS (in America) and not having it be your own fault.

AIDS organizations are suffering from compassion fatigue, rightly in my view, because people get this.

How much effort and money should one/society devote to people who make bad choices?

(Chickenhawk meme preemption: I'm a gay male)

If we call the bulk of women having abortions "mental children" (and their partners as bad or worse), who wants such folks going through a pregnancy then and raising a child then?

Certainly it makes more sense to let them grow a bit into mental adults and then have and raise the child, yes?

Too many of the abortion debates under-weight the supreme (or near supreme) interest of the potential child in competent adult care while in utero and thereafter.

I am not downplaying adoption, which has happened 3 times in my immediate family, but I do not see it as a realistic substitute for typical birth-timing abortions.

The Roberts-type adoptions are not going to soak up more than a limited percentage of the births to mental children. Too many adoptions will not happen or will work out badly, if we outlaw birth-timing abortion.

Support from me for birth-timing abortion does not change, in my view, if we consider the fetus an animal or 90% human.

If we put the life needs of the potential child first, birth-timing abortion passes muster.

Would I want to be born to a mental child and raised by a mental child? Of course not. A lifetime of neglect, poor care, and pain from a bad fit between mental child parent and me outweighs pain in the womb from abortion (assuming pain is felt).

Does having a child turn the mental child mom or mental child dad into responsible adults? If I were a fetus, I sure would not want to bet on it.

As a fetus, would I want to be born to punish the child mom and child dad for being careless? No, thanks.

Spend some time reading social and medical history evidence relating to folks on death row (or folks in prison generally), almost all of whom show scars of being born and raised by mental children, and the need for avoiding "mental child" pregnancy and child raising becomes crystal clear.

Nice job posting about abortion in a civilized tone!

When they say mutiple abortions are they only talking about abortions that are not medically necessary?

Many times during a miscarriage a woman has an abortion in order to reduce her risk (I am sure someone here can elucidate more on this). I can't remember the exact number but I think the CDC has the number of medically necessary abortions at around 10%.

If a woman needs an abortion because of a miscarriage then X months later the same thing occurs, does she ends up in the 'repeat customer' category?

I have for some time felt the age-old rape, incest and poverty arguments often used by the pro-choice crowd are largely using extreme cases to justify the normal. The ~50% statistic supports my impression that abortion "rights" is more a matter of preserving the prerogative of convenience for the woman over the life potential of the fetus.

I see an often overlooked (but for me essential) question in the abortion debate is to what degree does the life potential of the fetus confer rights and to what degree does the woman's convenience trump those rights? I think any reasonable person would conclude that the right to an expectation of life on behalf of a six-month fetus is great than that for a two-week embryo. Likewise, I think a reasonable person would agree that that a woman's right to life (e.g. severe medical conditions) has greater moral authority than a woman's right to a really good job offer. I think the fact that legally there is no difference in a sick woman aborting her two-week embryo out of concern for her life and a healty woman aborting a six-month fetus in order to get a good start on a new job demonstrates pretty well that there is something wrong in the law.

I like your idea about state homes for the incompetent.

More than one abortion and you are the responsibility of the state for life.

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The moral case against abortion is at least 2,500 years old. Passing laws is not going to end the practice.

As in the case of immoral drugs (those not sold in a drugstore) we should,at least, try. Sure it enriches criminals and creates a black market. However, what would the good old USA be with out some touch of the old USSR?

You can never have too much socialism I always say.

Fortunately in America you have choices.

Republican (moral) Socialism or Democrat (economic) socialism.

America will be the greatest socialist country on earth.

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I think the whole thing is an abortion doctors plot to raise prices. I mean look what the drug war has done for the price of certain vegetables.

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However, in the spirit of making this work I volunteer to be Chief Inspector of the VIPs. Which stands for Vagina Inspection Police.

America can be the standard for the world. The shining city on the mons - so to speak.

Just a suggestion:

People who use birth control perfectly, and happen to be among the (whatever - depends on the method) tiny percentage of people who conceive despite their perfect use of the contraceptive ----

Are still responsible for the pregnancy.

Reality: While birth control lowers the chances of conception, sex is the proximate cause of babies.

Illusion: The proximate cause of babies is someone's making a mistake somewhere in the production, packaging, prescribing, selling, purchasing, or implementation of a contraceptive product. Sex has nothing to do with it.

Well, I'm proud to be in the minority then. A human life is a human life, the more frail and vulnerable, the more precious.

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