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Techskeptic likes to put thoughts in my head and words in my mouth. Hence the next question:
Please post data that supports your assertion that if women who had abortions were not allowed to have them, then they would parent the child happily (as opposed to folks who had unwanted pregnancies but were already against abortion- a very different set of people)
[W]hy do you assume that most pregnancies that don’t end in abortions end in the foster care system? In fact, I would posit that if you dug hard enough you would find that most “unwanted pregnancies” that go to term end up with single mothers rather than in the foster care system. Either that, or they are adopted at birth– which is very popular with those couples that cannot have children.
This is in response to his line of thought that there are only two places for unwanted pregnancies to end up– in foster care or in orphanages. It escapes Techskeptic to think that women would actually want to keep their babies.
I tackle this very issue in a post I have entitled Abortion Raises Illegitimacy Rate where I quote John R. Lott Jr in the Wall Street Journal:
Many academic studies have shown that legalized abortion, by encouraging premarital sex, increased the number of unplanned births, even outweighing the reduction in unplanned births due to abortion. In the United States from the early 1970s, when abortion was liberalized, through the late 1980s, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, rising from an average of 5% of all births in 1965-69 to more than 16% two decades later (1985-1989). For blacks, the numbers soared from 35% to 62%. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion rules, it was nevertheless a key contributing factor.
This is exactly what I asked Techskeptic to produce in the first place– which he never did and instead created a smokescreen. Legalized abortion increased, not decreased, the number of unplanned births, but if you read the rest of the article you’ll see this:
What has happened to these babies of reluctant fathers? The mothers often end up raising the child on their own. Even as abortion has led to more out-of-wedlock births, it has also dramatically reduced adoptions of children born in America by two-parent families. Before Roe, when abortion was much more difficult, women who would have chosen an abortion but were unable to get one turned to adoption as their backup. After Roe, women who turned down an abortion were also the type who wanted to keep the child.
But all these changes–rising out-of-wedlock births, plummeting adoption rates, and the end of shotgun marriages–meant one thing: more single parent families. With work and other demands on their time, single parents, no matter how “wanted” their child may be, tend to devote less attention to their children than do married couples; after all, it’s difficult for one person to spend as much time with a child as two people can.
Do you see the effect? We have more single-parent families, and more unplanned pregnancies and the man is usually not present. And this is the great vision that the Pro-Abortionist movement pushes as a choice.
So, to answer your question, Techskeptic, here’s my data in terms of logic as to why more women are keeping their children with abortion the law, and also the data that I asked you to present.
I’m confused — you say that legalized abortion has increased birth rates and abortion rates? Are we talking about teens or adults?
Great data, and you’re doing a fine job keeping up with this, MIn. I bet it’s exhausting, but rewarding too.
I’m starting a blog tour tomorrow on my blog for a book called My Life Unscripted by Tricia Goyer. She actually had an abortion at the age of 15 and was pg again by the age of 17, at which point she realized she couldn’t go through another one again. She became a Christian and raised her daughter, and has a real ministry with crisis pregnancy centers and with unwed mothers. I read the book and wish I could get it into the hands of young teen girls everywhere, especially the ones our culture devours in the public school system. It’s all about encouraging these girls to “script” their own responses BEFORE challenging life situations arise. It’s Christian too, so I can’t wait to promote it!
Hi Heather, I guess it could be a bit confusing. What I’m saying is that the option to have an abortion has encouraged people to have more premarital sex, but when the woman finds out she’s pregnant she’s not always aborting. Either she realizes late that it truly is a baby inside of her or for whatever reason, she keeps the baby.
Obviously legalized abortion encourages more abortions– because that’s the point: you don’t have to have the baby, you can kill it.
So, legalized abortion has increased the number of unplanned pregnancies (no method of birth control is 100%, if someone’s using bc they’re not always consistent in it’s use, etc) and therefore increased the number of single moms, unplanned births and abortions.
Exactly the opposite of the whole notion of “Every child a wanted child”.
I don’t have figures for all women, but I do have data from 1972-2006 for females aged 14-19 and all rates have actually gone down: pregnancy, birth and abortion. (I don’t know how to link it here?)
And, really, I am disturbed by the way you must think of women — to think that they take life so lightly as to run around indiscriminately getting pregnant and having abortions. Do you know any women like that? I am 36 years old and used to be quite the party girl; I have associated with some pretty unsavory characters and have never met a girl who slept around simply because she could abort a baby if she got pregnant.
I have, however, met men that thought that way and I think part of that stems from the way legislators keep taking the decision out of the hands of women as if we’re recalcitrant children who need to be taken in hand.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t take abortion lightly either. But I think that the key to prevention is encouraging abstinence and providing contraceptives.
Other rates that have gone down as well are the number of deaths of women from botched “back alley” abortions and the incidence of abortions in countries where contraceptives were made easily available.
Heather, check out this post: But Abstinence Education Doesn’t Work (You can certainly paste a link into a comment box and the blog software should recognize it as such.)
I find it hard to believe that the rates of unplanned pregnancies is gone down if you compare pre-1973 rates to post-1973 rates. I do not have a problem with the logic of comparing 1980s/1990s/2000s rates and seeing a decrease, but what I’m comparing in this post is what the rates of pregnancy and abortion were prior to the legalization of abortion and following its legislation. Basically, how has the availability of abortion on demand effected people’s decision to engage in out of wedlock intercourse, how has it effected pregnancies, abortions, and unplanned births.
I have stated in this post that I believe (along with the man I quoted) that abortion on demand has not done anything to inhibit out of wedlock intercourse– if anything it’s encouraged it. I don’t believe that it’s had an impact against the number of pregnancies– since we now have abortion to take care of the “unwanted” pregnancy. And I have to believe that it’s raised the rate of abortion by orders of magnitude. Unplanned births probably have increased as a function of the increased intercourse. Again, I’m open to see your data, but all of my logic seems to point the other way.
Heather, I know nothing of the people that you associate with or that I associate with. I know that many men and women who view abortion as a viable choice do not have a problem using this as an excuse to engage in sexual activity that can result in pregnancy. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a market for RU-486 or Plan-B. The point is, in the heat of the moment, under pressure, people are willing to do things that are not in their perceived best interest because of passion. But they should accept the responsibility of their actions.
I think that if you compare to the number of deaths from “back alley” abortions to the number of deaths in regular abortions (the baby) I think you’ll see that the numbers of the later greatly eclipse that of the former.
I tried to c&p it from my favorites and it wouldn’t work — perhaps because it’s a pdf? Anyway, here it is:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf
And I just don’t see how anyone could, with any accuracy, determine what happened with regards to abortion before 1973 when women simply would not have been that honest about having had the procedure. I include my own findings in this. But as you can see it has had an effect on the number of pregnancies and birth rate and abortion rate. As I mentioned in my first post, ALL of the numbers have gone down, not just births.
And this cracks me up, you said “Heather, I know nothing of the people that you associate with or that I associate with.” Lol. Well, why don’t you know about the people you associate with? Your belief in something doesn’t make it a fact.
Medicines like RU and Plan B are meant for back-up protection only, such as when a condom or other birth-control method fails or in an emergency such as a rape or incest. If we have women running around abusing (their legal right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy) we have failed them long before the pregnancy occured and should be focused on education and social programs (big brother/big sister, ymca) that will get these kids out of each other beds and into soccer.
I really don’t care to debate the moment a baby becomes a baby with you as science and spirituality have different answers, but I am appalled that you would trade the life of a confused cheerleader or desperate mother with too many mouths to feed and a drunken husband or a child victim of molestation to a back-alley abortionist for the life of child too underdeveloped to be viable.
Again, I think abortion is a serious matter and am generally not in favor of it, but I am in favor of having the freedom of that choice available in as safe and healthy manner as possible.
1. Guttmacher is related to Planned Parenthood, and is pro-choice– just a disclosure. Again, I find it hard to believe that there were more abortions prior to 1973 since there were no clinics performing abortions, and any abortions done would have to be done in the back alley or through doctors that would not report it. That means that thousands of women, daily, were in back-alleys or in hospitals with doctors that accepted abortion and yet we didn’t know about it.
And look at your data– taking it for truth here without looking elsewhere. It may be true that in 2006 the rates were lower than 1972, but look at all the years in between. 1988 had an abortion rate of 43.5! Compare that to 19.1 in 1972. My whole point is not comparing 2006 to 1972, but seeing what happened after abortion was legalized– what effect did the legalization of abortion have? I highly doubt that after 30+ years that the drop in birth/abortion rate has anything to do with abortion being legalized, but with those that oppose abortion fighting against it and a new tide of people that view the baby as a life.
2. I’m definitely with you on doing things before a person engages in sex rather than after. I think that this has to start with the parents– they have the most impact that anyone can have on when their children get into sexual behaviors. And I think that one of the biggest things that has hurt parents taking a stand is the whole “they’re going to do it anyway” and “you have to make sure they do it safely” type rhetoric. No, they don’t have to do it, and no, you don’t have to stand for it. You make a big deal about saving yourself, they’ll get the message. Why we can have ads on radios telling parents to talk to their kids in the car about ecstasy– do it right now!– but we can’t have the same message be told to parents about sex is beyond me. If our culture started to support abstinence a lot of this problem would go away. (Don’t confuse abstinence school programs (which are good) with the culture– the former I believe to be inadequate, the latter is necessary.)
3. I think you’re wrong about science and spirituality defining when it is a baby. If you’ve looked at the whole series you’ll notice only once post on the Bible and what it thinks. I have many posts on when a new human individual is a life on this site that are from scientists and doctors. In fact, it’s the Bible that seems to be more silent on the exact time: The Bible mentions that life is in the womb whereas science says fertilization is when there’s a new life.
4. Why have a problem with any abortions? If it’s not a life, then you shouldn’t have a problem at any time during the pregnancy. If it is a life, you should have a problem any time in the pregnancy. The feeling that “I don’t like it, but it shouldn’t be outlawed” is itself contradictory.
To address your questions in no particular order…and WHY can’t I italicize here?…:
I don’t think anyone — or at least I am not — [is] saying that there were MORE abortions prior to legalization. What I am saying is that it’s hard to get an accurate idea if abortions had RISEN when they were scantily reported to begin with.
I personally credit the rise in pregnancies in the mid-late seventies as a result of the soldiers coming home from Vietnam, but since you didn’t ask that question, I digress. If you’ll look at all the years preceeding 1988 they had similar rates so I think some sort of fluctuating is normal before things begin to level out (or as in this case: decline) — if you’ll look at the overall population you’ll see the same sort of fluctuating.
It’s a matter of opinion on whether or not the lower ABORTION rate is due to legalization or anti-choice campaigning, but it is FACT that there are fewer deaths of women from abortion due to legalization, and FACT that the lower pregnancy rate is due, at least in part, to less restrictions in contraceptives.
For the record, I didn’t say “the Bible” or “science” I said “spirituality or science” and it is an important difference. I did perhaps misuse the word “baby” though as I meant the moment the baby becomes something more than a division of cells, ie.: “a soul”. And again, that is a matter of opinion, but the moment the baby becomes viable is NOT.
And I can be against quite a number of things, personally, but still think they should be LEGAL for other people: liverwurst, white tank tops, rap music, smoking…if I start trying to legislate my opinion or my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) then I am in danger of having the same done to me as soon as my like minded-fellows become the minority or the ones with the lesser amount of money, at any rate.
You certainly can italicize here, but you have to put in the HTML, as I’ve had some conflicts with the buttons that would insert the code for you. Simply put whatever you want to italicize in <i>here</i>– replace here with whatever you want to italicize.
You’re right, hadn’t thought of Vietnam, and it is a complex question. But it remains a question I have– how has abortion (and/or the advent of any birth control) effected pregnancy rates. One would surmise that when people believe they are safe in engaging in an activity they are more likely to engage in the activity– such that if they believe that they are protected by the pill, the condom, or abortion they will be more likely to have sex than if they did not have the options of getting out of the responsibility of the act.
There is a fact out there about what contributes to each person choosing not to have an abortion– so it’s not as black and white as you’d like to paint. Sure, there are fewer deaths because of back-alley abortions, but there are still women dying from abortions, and the odds that a woman will die because of an abortion are greater since more abortions are happening. The percentage may be less, but the quantity doesn’t necessarily follow the percentage.
Spirituality may be able to talk about soul, but medicine and science talk about life. From fertilization forward, medicine calls the baby alive. Baby is also the term used to described a individual human being from embryo through infant.
Viability is not as fixed as you would like to believe. On the one hand, the age at which a baby in the womb can be saved and live outside the womb continues to get younger as science progresses. What was once the age of viability in the 70s is much older than it is now. Furthermore, IVF (which I am also against) shows that we can take embryos, freeze them, thaw them, plant them in a mother’s uterus and they too will grow and be born if we leave them to their natural processes. So, from the smallest embryo to the largest baby in the womb, the baby is alive, is a separate individual.
But why are you against abortion– that’s the thing. What is your problem with it? And what other things that we now throw people in prison for and execute the death penalty on should we legalize so that people can have the choice to do it? Drugs? Incest? Rape? Serial Murder?
The logic that “others should have the choice to kill their babies” falls apart if you believe that you’d be killing your baby to have an abortion.
Abortion isn’t protection against preganancy, therefore the conclusion that people think it’s safe to engage in sex because of it is non-sensical. Do you honestly belive that there are more than a handful of people who engage in pre-marital, non-protected sex simply because abortion is an option?
“the odds that a woman will die because of an abortion are greater since more abortions are happening”
But there aren’t more abortions happening. You did see the chart, right? If you have contrary evidence I would like to see it.
“The percentage may be less, but the quantity doesn’t necessarily follow the percentage.”
Huh?
I don’t argue the point that the baby is alive. I don’t even argue when or if the baby has a soul — I merely brought that up since it seems to be a sticking point for most people, if it’s not for you then it’s a moot point.
Are you against all artificially imposed death? Solidiers? Lethal Injection? Creepy black spider in your cupboard?
“And what other things that we now throw people in prison for and execute the death penalty on should we legalize so that people can have the choice to do it? Drugs? Incest? Rape? Serial Murder?”
Drug dealers and rapists get the death penalty?
You are comparing apples to oranges – -abortion is legal so you have to compare it to other things that are potientially fatal to oneself or others, but perfectly legal to perform, such as smoking, alcoholism and coal-mining.
Do you think there are any circumstances in which abortion should be allowed or illegal across the board?
“The logic that “others should have the choice to kill their babies” falls apart if you believe that you’d be killing your baby to have an abortion.”
Why?
Abortion isn’t protection against pregnancy– my bad. Abortion is protection against child birth. Since birth control and abortion all have the same desired ends (no baby), I lumped them together. People that I’m aware of don’t take BC because they don’t want to be pregnant as much as they do not want to have a child (outside the womb at this case). Do I believe that there are more people that engage in sex because abortion is an option, yes– and it’s more than a handful.
I looked at the chart that started in 1972. I find it inconceivable that the thousands of abortions that are happening every day were happening prior to abortion being legalized. And I also pointed out that though the rate of abortions in 2006 may be less than that at 1972, over the course of the time it was much greater– and in the 80s it was double what was happening in 1972. Focusing on now and then as two points ignores the issue.
I am opposed to killing the innocent– no matter how they are killed. Euthanasia – yes. Soldiers – no. Lethal Injection – no. Creepy black spider – it’s either him/her or me.
I guess that should have read “throw people in prison for or execute the death penalty on” — bad conjunction.
Abortion was not legal in 1972– it was forced into legality in 1973. Therefore, it’s not apples and oranges to ask “should we also legalize X that is also fatal” since abortion is fatal to the infant.
Illegal across the board. However, if the life of the mother is in jeopardy– which I hear is hard to determine– then I would not find fault since one of them would have to die. This is an extreme exception, and would have to be followed up with the appropriate paperwork.
Because it’s either a life or it isn’t. Just because someone wants to kill the baby doesn’t make it any less a baby than if they want to keep it. If your belief about what it is changes because of whether or not the person wants it, you would have to conclude that a 2-year-old that’s unwanted by its mother is also not a person. That is– to be consistent.
Well, for Pete’s sake. I am not arguing that the baby isn’t a baby or isn’t alive. I am not at all squeamish about that. I am arguing about the host body’s right to keep or terminate said baby if she chooses. I don’t have to think it’s a grand idea and drinks all ’round, to think it should be legal.
I find it hard to believe that you believe that tens of thousands of women rushed right out to terminate the babies they were carrying before the ink was dry on the new law. You are quite welcome to your beliefs — but you shouldn’t confuse them with facts.
And if we’re talking about whether or not abortions have increased due to legality you have to look at all points along the way and the overall picture and, most important, what is happening now. And what is happening now is that rates have dropped. You can’t legislate for 1980.