Abortions in US decline again, likely due to Obamacare contraceptive access

ThatRobGuy said:

Making it illegal only serves the purpose of being able to catch a tiny fraction of them in the act, and lock them up, but does nothing to reduce the actual abortion rate in any meaningful way.

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In considering a post Roe Vs. Wade world (which the most cynical part of me wants to see just to watch which anti-abortion state can hoist itself the highest by their own petard) the current reality of abortion methods must be considered. If a state goes whole 100% illegal they can look forward to the illicit importation of pharmaceutical abortion drugs and we have the drug war to show us how poorly they would do stopping that. That leads me to ponder just how intrusive they would trying to stamp out abortion. Criminal investigations of miscarriages? Registration of pregnancies? Restricting travel for pregnant women?

David Cabrera said:

I might search more into the issue of abortion in the early 20th century but even if abortion was possible was not as numerous as nowadays.

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Not exactly true.
The challenge in the United States is that pre-Roe v. Wade, with abortion illegal, keeping any semblance of accurate records was impossible. Everything will be estimates.
otoh, abortion rates are tracked in the Roe era.
The rate reached its peak in the early 80s and has been in decline ever since.
What we see is that the rate falls faster when policies supporting women and children pre/post-natal are in place. It fell faster during the Clinton and Obama eras than in the GOP eras, albeit in constant decline throughout.

Desk trauma said:

In considering a post Roe Vs. Wade world (which the most cynical part of me wants to see just to watch which anti-abortion state can hoist itself the highest by their own petard) the current reality of abortion methods must be considered. If a state goes whole 100% illegal they can look forward to the illicit importation of pharmaceutical abortion drugs and we have the drug war to show us how poorly they would do stopping that. That leads me to ponder just how intrusive they would trying to stamp out abortion. Criminal investigations of miscarriages? Registration of pregnancies? Restricting travel for pregnant women?

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This is no joke, El Salvador does just that.

Desk trauma said:

In considering a post Roe Vs. Wade world (which the most cynical part of me wants to see just to watch which anti-abortion state can hoist itself the highest by their own petard) the current reality of abortion methods must be considered. If a state goes whole 100% illegal they can look forward to the illicit importation of pharmaceutical abortion drugs and we have the drug war to show us how poorly they would do stopping that. That leads me to ponder just how intrusive they would trying to stamp out abortion. Criminal investigations of miscarriages? Registration of pregnancies? Restricting travel for pregnant women?

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Excellent points!

My guess is that funding all of those measures would be more expensive than just funding programs that would provide no-cost contraception and social safety nets that would assist low income households that would make keeping the child more of a surmountable task.

My guess is that the party that claims they don't want those things due to "reducing government spending" would likely flip the script and would become "money is not an object" types with regards to enforcing measures like that.

...but at least then, they'd be forced to just admit "it's not actually about government spending...it's about restricting something we don't like, and doing it exclusively by trying to restrict activities that go against our religious morals".

It's become quite apparent that the only solutions that many in that camp are willing to entertain are ones that center around "making sure you only have sex under conditions that we deem suitable"

ThatRobGuy said:

Excellent points!

My guess is that funding all of those measures would be more expensive than just funding programs that would provide no-cost contraception and social safety nets that would assist low income households that would make keeping the child more of a surmountable task.

My guess is that the party that claims they don't want those things due to "reducing government spending" would likely flip the script and would become "money is not an object" types with regards to enforcing measures like that.

...but at least then, they'd be forced to just admit "it's not actually about government spending...it's about restricting something we don't like, and doing it exclusively by trying to restrict activities that go against our religious morals".

It's become quite apparent that the only solutions that many in that camp are willing to entertain are ones that center around "making sure you only have sex under conditions that we deem suitable"

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It's not really primarily about regulating sex- they know full well people will become pregnant. They just don't care, they don't view it as their problem.

FenderTL5 said:

Not exactly true.
The challenge in the United States is that pre-Roe v. Wade, with abortion illegal, keeping any semblance of accurate records was impossible. Everything will be estimates.
otoh, abortion rates are tracked in the Roe era.
The rate reached its peak in the early 80s and has been in decline ever since.
What we see is that the rate falls faster when policies supporting women and children pre/post-natal are in place. It fell faster during the Clinton and Obama eras than in the GOP eras, albeit in constant decline throughout.

View attachment 263477

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If supporting supporting women and children pre/post-natal is helping reducing abortion, I believe it is good. I am not against that per se.

FireDragon76 said:

It's not really primarily about regulating sex- they know full well people will become pregnant. They just don't care, they don't view it as their problem.

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Yes, this seems to be true. If it's not their problem. Then they should mind their business about abortions. And stop pretending every life matters. I believe Demacrats seem to be the ones, that care about babies, children and people. At least they try to pass laws to help mothers, that get pregnant and have babies.

David Cabrera said:

If supporting women and children pre/post-natal is helping reducing abortion, I believe it is good. I am not against that per se.

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If that's you're position, then kudos as that's a positive shift away from the mainstream GOP position which is "You have to carry this child to term and have that baby!", but then say "I don't want to have a pay a dime more in taxes after that child is born to help because it was your mistake, not mine!".

Now if we could just get the majority of the GOP to adopt your attitude on that, there'd actually be a viable chance of substantially reducing the demand for abortion.

David Cabrera said:

If supporting supporting women and children pre/post-natal is helping reducing abortion, I believe it is good. I am not against that per se.

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If you want to force women to not have have abortions. You should be willing to pay for it. Or leave her alone.

FireDragon76 said:

It's not really primarily about regulating sex- they know full well people will become pregnant. They just don't care, they don't view it as their problem.

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Depends on which republican you're talking to. If you talk to my parents & the people at their southern baptist church, it's very much a punitive attitude where I've even heard them say "good, when they have that 18 years of responsibility, that'll teach them to think twice before they decide to have sex out of wedlock again".

As much as they dislike the "child being killed" aspect of abortion, they seem to equally hate the premise that people are being given an "easy out" for something they feel they should be punished for via having to raise a child for 18 years to "teach them a lesson in responsibility"

ThatRobGuy said:

Again, like I said, aiming for "total eradication" and dismissing anything measures aimed at reduction is a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

If abortion is really the most vile evil on the planet, why would one want to dismiss all reduction measures in the name of "it's not worth doing if it can't get rid of all of it".

In logical fallacy terms, that's what's known as "appeal to futility"


It seems to me that many on the pro-life side want to have their cake and eat it too... They want abortion to go away, but they're unwilling to consider any reduction measures that don't involve forcing other to abide by their religious code with regards to sexuality.

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From what I gather, some folks in these camps want sex to only occur 1. only in marriage, and 2. only when a child is both possible and wanted. I have actually read opinions that it is immoral for a married couple to have sex except during the woman's fertile time as sex not specifically for procreation is against God's plan.

I would like to believe this is a very rare opinion, but sometimes I wonder.

ThatRobGuy said:

Depends on which republican you're talking to. If you talk to my parents & the people at their southern baptist church, it's very much a punitive attitude where I've even heard them say "good, when they have that 18 years of responsibility, that'll teach them to think twice before they decide to have sex out of wedlock again".

As much as they dislike the "child being killed" aspect of abortion, they seem to equally hate the premise that people are being given an "easy out" for something they feel they should be punished for via having to raise a child for 18 years to "teach them a lesson in responsibility"

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Yes, exactly.. it's a punitive mindset inherited from Puritan religion. The right people being hurt and suffering is all part of the cosmic logic of their "religion".

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

If you want to force women to not have have abortions. You should be willing to pay for it. Or leave her alone.

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What about women being responsible and avoid getting pregnant? Your reasoning is what make women into children instead of adults.

Like Uncle Ben once said "A great power leads to a great responsibility".

ThatRobGuy said:

If that's you're position, then kudos as that's a positive shift away from the mainstream GOP position which is "You have to carry this child to term and have that baby!", but then say "I don't want to have a pay a dime more in taxes after that child is born to help because it was your mistake, not mine!".

Now if we could just get the majority of the GOP to adopt your attitude on that, there'd actually be a viable chance of substantially reducing the demand for abortion.

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Well, I am not a libertarian. I am for helping society but I believe certain tolerance of behavior is what brings chaos in the first place.

David Cabrera said:

Well, I am not a libertarian. I am for helping society but I believe certain tolerance of behavior is what brings chaos in the first place.

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...but the thing people need to remember is to be pragmatic with regards to tolerance of behavior and accept the the reality that a person wanting to tolerate (or not tolerate) a behavior has very little impact on whether or not other people engage in that behavior.

For instance, I don't like the behavior of people abusing opiates, and would prefer they didn't...but I understand the reality that me not liking it and me saying, till I'm blue in the face, "you shouldn't do that, there will be consequences" isn't going to change the fact that people are going to do it, so it's best to have contingencies in place to minimize the harm when it does happen.

For instance, providing funds toward rehabilitation programs and giving narcan to EMS and Police.

Such measures don't really exist for cases of unplanned pregnancies. Our welfare benefits are pretty much a joke compared to what other industrialized nations have in place to help low income households with healthcare and education costs, and we have a substantial portion of the country fighting against making contraception more widely available to prevent the pregnancies in the first place.

Obviously you've stated your position that you don't like people having premarital sex, or for purposes outside of procreation (if I understood your post earlier). But I think you'd agree that a person having sex using contraception to prevent the pregnancy in the first place is much better than getting pregnant and having an abortion, or getting pregnant then trying to raise a child under abysmal financial circumstances (that also leads to child suffering)

Mayzoo said:

I would like to believe this is a very rare opinion, but sometimes I wonder.

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Unfortunately while it may not be the majority, it's far from "rare"

According to some Gallup public polling, 15% of Catholics still oppose contraception on moral grounds (even when a couple is married)

15% may seem like a small number until one considers that Catholics account for 70 million people in the US.

The number is 6% among the 140 million non-Catholic Christians.

Catholics who oppose: ‭10,500,000‬
Non-catholic Christians who oppose: ‭8,400,000

When you look at the public polling data on the opposition to using public funding to make it more available, those numbers go up from there.

David Cabrera said:

What about women being responsible and avoid getting pregnant? Your reasoning is what make women into children instead of adults.

Like Uncle Ben once said "A great power leads to a great responsibility".

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Apparently the women and her boyfriend isn't responsible and probably never will be. So another generation un-responsible being born. Stopping abortions does nothing and still is non of your business.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

Apparently the women and her boyfriend isn't responsible and probably never will be. So another generation un-responsible being born. Stopping abortions does nothing and still is non of your business.

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I don't see abortions being stopped 100% legally or otherwise.

Problem is talking about the consequences of getting pregnant and raising a child without some sort of decent support is going to be hard on everyone. Your not suppose to speak of those things, because it is seen as shaming when in reality it's a hard truth. Teaching a young lady that wants a baby because she wants someone to love - due to no one loving her - isn't the answer? Encouraging those reasons? It's better than her and the child suffering when she is over her head, and both suffer later. Yet, you can't speak of that. It's shaming. The lines drawn today are just as harmful as them figuring things out later, and losing hope - which sadly happens way to often.

Single parenthood is always going to be with us. It just is. Preparing our young people for the reality of that life is seriously lacking. I had friends in that position when we were young, and nothing except culture attitudes towards single parenting (more accepting today) has changed.

David Cabrera said:

What about women being responsible and avoid getting pregnant? Your reasoning is what make women into children instead of adults.

Like Uncle Ben once said "A great power leads to a great responsibility".

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Certain policies can create a cyclic storm of repetition...

...and it's not about making women into children or insulting anyone's intelligence, it's about understanding that limited education on certain topics can lead to accidents happening.

Something as simple as not knowing which prescription drugs interact with birth control, not knowing that certain lotions can cause condoms to fail, etc...

These things can be addressed by comprehensive sex education.

Birth control and pregnancy aren't the only medical/scientific topics that our country is sorely under-educated on. However, it does seem to be one of the select few in which there's a sizable portion of the population dead set on restricting access to information on with regards to adolescents and young adults.

For instance, there's several parents who still oppose teens being taught about proper contraception use.

Can you imagine if people treated other health/medical topics the same way?

Imagine people trying to push public schools to not inform kids about which foods cause increased risk of heart disease, or a community pushing for policies that restrict a school from teaching adolescents about the dangers of smoking?

Everyone would agree that's pretty much lunacy.

KarateCowboy said:

That said, it's incontrovertibly true that killing the preborn is homicide so "guns blazing" is ridiculous hyperbole fake drama.

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Depending on where you live, that’s demonstrably false. So much so that I have a hard time believing I need to say it...