*nods*

[kyburg]

There are days it isn't good to be right.

Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.

Two-thirds of women who have abortions cite "inability to afford a child" as their primary reason (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). In the Bush presidency, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Herbert Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.

Half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate. And men who are jobless usually do not marry. In the 16 states, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.

Women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency -- with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million -- abortion increases.

My wife and I know -- as does my son David -- that doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical insurance, special schooling and parental employment are crucial for a special child. David attended the Kentucky School for the Blind, as well as schools for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. He was mainstreamed in public schools as well. We have two other sons and five grandchildren, and we know that every mother, every father and every child needs public and family support.

Repeat after me.

If you do not address the reasons a women seeks an abortion, you will NEVER stop them.

Anything else - including legislation to prevent them - only feeds someone's ego and does nothing.

You want to end abortion, you have to end the need for them. And that is expensive, labor-intensive, intelligence-stifling, I-hate-these-idiots work. And more of it. Over generations, and longer.

And a lot of the time, you have to accept the fact that there just isn't enough to go around. And these "parents" are making the best decision they can, with what resources they have.

Abortions are cheaper than public education, socialized medicine and all that other jazz. And in a culture obsessed with the bottom line, that's what we have to work with.

Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need a president who will do something about jobs, health insurance and support for mothers.

Yeah, I'm there.

Comments

[cecerose.livejournal.com]

While I'm pro-choice, I agree heartily with that analysis.

Honestly, while I don't want to have children, the sad fact is, even if I did, I wouldn't because I'm single, don't believe I would have a reliable partner and don't make enough money.

[religioushoax.livejournal.com]

I'm reposting this in my journal with credit to you.

[ceolyn.livejournal.com]

This is so very, very true. *sighs* Idiots. Makes me want to go hit idiots. Only it doesn't seem to help and they never seem to realize that their being stupid.

[bigbigtruck.livejournal.com]

"You want to end abortion, you have to end the need for them."

Tell that to the fuckers who tried to shut down the new Planned Parenthood office in Austin.
LOL inexpensive birth control is for whores LOL

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I am also pro-choice, and that analysis makes great sense to me, too. It's about time someone had the courage to run the numbers and see the actual stark truth to the matter: in a bad economy, kids are not an option.

And like other posters here, being a single parent is not an option for me. And at my age, there is a huge chance that any kid I'd conceive would be defective. Unlike the columnist, I do not have the desire to raise a 'special needs' child. (Or any child at all, for that matter...)

My own health care costs are rising- I just got the readout for next year. I won't be hit as hard as families or couples will be, but it is still significant.

What bothers me is that there is a growing movement to deny me access to contraceptive pills (which I need for health, not pregnancy prevention)- pharmacists who will not dispense them due to 'moral' objections. Perhaps they are adding to the problem. I wonder...

Sunfell

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a pretty simple, if sad, equation: Women who don't want children will find ways to get rid of their children -- before birth or after. Linda Gordon wrote what many consider to be the definitive history of reproductive health, "Women's Bodies, Women's Lives," and she points out in the first chapter that abortion and infanticide, far from being products of our morally degraded age, have always been used to control population. The difference now is that we have the chance to develop some truly effective birth control options to stop unwanted pregnancies, if we can get past the anti crusade that says only abstinence work and all birth control methods other than fertility awareness are abortifacients.

The subject of abortion increasing during Republican administrations came up at a party I was at on Saturday. Glad you posted something that at least partially confirms this.

[religioushoax.livejournal.com]

i agree. i'm not on birth control for the sake of preventing preganancy. if i'm not on it i don't have a period for 14 weeks and then bleed uncontrollably for 2. I WILL NOT LIVE LIKE THAT, and since my only other option, to have a hysterectomy, is out because no doctor will perform it on a 23 year old with no children, pills it is.

morons.

[bigbigtruck.livejournal.com]

Yup. I take it very personally whenever someone tries to deny a woman birth control. IMO, it's the same as if they walked up to me and said, "Hey EK! I want you to wake up vomiting from pain, let scar tissue run rampant inside your abdomen, and be forced to leave your job because you can't get enough sick time!
"Oh, and have several kids you neither want nor can support, OK ^____^"

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

lorriejharris linked me to you.

While I'm pro choice (and European), I do agree fully with your points.

Another point would be that I don't feel myself in any position to raise a child yet. I don't have a job, I'm still studying, and I frankly don't feel "grown-up" enough to be a good mother even if the circumstances were perfect. Hence why I have an implant now (not as forgettable as pills, and not prone to misuse like condoms - and YES, I know about the AIDS issue, but I trust my current partner).

I don't see why people are opposed to birth control and public education as to such at all. It would keep a lot of people from ever having to make that decision... since you certainly can't keep them from having sex.

;)

OT

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Sinfest icons.

;)

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

I am pro-choice. I turn 45 in two months. Charles and I want a child very much indeed.

We are going to risk it, despite my age, as soon as we have figured out the finances for doing so. But that's planning for a healthy child, not a special-needs child. Some of the possible issues can be addressed pre-conception by genetic testing. I've mentioned Tay-Sachs, and I think that's it for my side of the family.

Bottom line: If in-utero testing indicates that our hoped-for, longed-for child, the child for whom I've been waiting a lifetime and who Charles wants very much indeed, is profoundly congenitally defective, we may well abort the pregnancy and mourn. This is not to cast aspersions on any who choose to do otherwise. It is our considered opinion, at this point, that this is what *we* would choose to do for reasons of our child's quality of life.

And there is this -

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Debi Jackson, the administrator of Cincinnati Woman's Services, an abortion clinic in Cincinnati, Ohio, recall two incidents at the clinic in which fathers who were active picketers of the local Planned Parenthood clinic brought their daughters in for abortions. "Before I came to Cincinnati Woman's Services, I was head clinic escort at Planned Parenthood for two and one-half years. After all that time, I had the faces of the regular picketers memorized. Within the first few months on the job, I was shocked when one, and then a second male picketer brought their teenage daughters in for abortions. Neither apparently realized I had changed jobs, but they were both clearly shocked to see me. In my experience, these are people who can't face having the neighbors or people at church find out that their daughters are sexually active. They also seem to believe that their daughters are different from the other women in the waiting room, and the daughters seem to think so too. However, in the counseling session, we make it clear that their behavior, and their predicament, is no different than that of the clinic's other clients. This seems to come as a shock to some of them."

The actual quote is from this book

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*shakes head* Some people need their license to fill prescriptions revoked.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

There is no maybe about it with me.

Any child that can survive me, will likely HAVE to - and I truly believe I will be held accountable if I leave a dependent child at the mercy of my culture who can't survive without me.

There isn't much I can do once a child is born, except raise the child as best as we can.

But a child we are certain, with no question or doubt, has conditions that would make it impossible for it to live independently at any stage of its life, then it is upon me to decide what I'm going to get thunked for - terminating a pregnancy or abandoning an innocent. To my mind, the latter is nothing short of the old custom of exposing an infant at birth for the first three days and if it lives, it gets acknowledged by the tribe.

I'll term a trisomy 9, 13 or 23 - if I know about it, I'm responsible to act on that knowledge. And yes, I plan to know. That's part of the responsibility of having children outside my twenties.

[pseudicide.livejournal.com]

That makes a hellish amount of sex. Restricting the means for having an abortion has little to do with stopping the reason WHY people want one, and that is much more important, it is very true. I am pretty firmly pro-choice, but i do not think conditions that cause people to have them because of the economic state of things is in any way good, or healthy.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

But a child we are certain, with no question or doubt, has conditions that would make it impossible for it to live independently at any stage of its life, then it is upon me to decide what I'm going to get thunked for - terminating a pregnancy or abandoning an innocent.

Right with you there. That's why it is a maybe, too; there are conditions which would be considered profoundly defective but which can be mitigated for so as to allow the child to be independent and to have a full life with high quality of life.

We, too, plan to know. It is our responsibility.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Sex or sense, dearling? I'm dying here.

[pseudicide.livejournal.com]

LOL! SENSE!

That's what I get for responding whilst writing Execution Memos for IT contracts! I make no sex/sense at all...

[starrthinks.livejournal.com]

It is absolutely insane that pharmacists are now allowed to reject prescriptions... just INSANE!

It makes me so angry!

I'm way to cynical...

[bigbigtruck.livejournal.com]

...I laughed out loud at that. HAW HAW HAW!

Re: I'm way to cynical...

[bigbigtruck.livejournal.com]

*to=too

[bigbigtruck.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting for the first "no antibiotics for you; prayer will cure strep throat!" court case.

[starrthinks.livejournal.com]

Oh me too, just think pharmacists can keep up from getting the morning after pill, birth control, they could deny on the basis of the disease if they felt you contracted it due to "Gods will" ugh.

It is just really screwed up. Luckily I haven't had any trouble getting my contraceptives filled here.

[religioushoax.livejournal.com]

omg, the first pharmacist that refuses to fill my prescription for any reason other than insurance being a fucktard will have me over the counter and snatching them by their little white collar. then when i get out of jail, i'll be driving to my brother-in-law's pharmacy in cincinnati :)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

All yours.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/firstborn/firstborn11.html

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*nods* Another hard and fast I tie to is that I've yet to find a good viable case of someone getting pregnant with the express intent of having an abortion. No other presenting issues, no criminal record.

Women have abortions because for whatever reason, they can't complete the pregnancy. Deal with that cause, and likely you'll deal with ending the whole thing.

It has to die of attrition. I'm old enough to remember the world before Roe v. Wade - it wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't abortion-free.

[bloodfyr.livejournal.com]

I've always been pro-choice. I'm a male, and I believe it's the woman's body, therefore her choice. Religious zealots on the street, Congress, the President, and even God himself have no say in the matter.

[bloodfyr.livejournal.com]

"I don't see why people are opposed to birth control and public education as to such at all"

It's called religion. God, it seems, would much rather have abandoned babies in dumpsters than a pair of teens practicing safe sex. Or so that's what Pat Robertson and the 700 Club would want us to believe.