Abortion opponents: observations, questions, and suggestions...

[bholdr]

With the recent supreme court vacancies, the abortion debate is back in the news, and it's got me thinking. I'd like to hear thoughts from the anti-abortion folks on the forum on the following observations:

The great majority of the time and money spent by the 'pro-life' crowd seems to be targeted at defeating abortion as a whole, that is, overturning R v. W, with a comparitivly small ammount being committed to fighting individual abortions the socio-economic factors that contribute to abortions in general.


problem 1:
------this seems to be due, partly (and a big fat 'IMO' on this statement) to ideological roadblocks that don't allow conservatives, esp evangelical christians, to effectivly oppose what they see as murder.

One would think that those that feel that abortion is THAT bad would be willing to sacrifice some minor ideological positions in order to fight a greater 'evil'. For example, abstinence-only sex ed in schools is, to many evangelicals, the only morally acceptable form of sex-ed. As far as i can tell, teaching condom use and responsible sexuality alongside abstinance is undeniably more effective n preventing teen pregnancies and thus abortion, but, because of an ideological opposition to promoting anything that could conceivably encourage sexuality, pro-lifers are unwilling to embrace techniques that would, imo, help signifigantly reduce abrtions.

problem 2:
------Also, with the massive ammount of money and effort being spent on categorical opposition to abortion, i feel that other tactics that would reduce the number of abortions in this country are being ignored, relitivly speaking. I think that if all that money was spent on:

A: incresing the public's awareness of effective methods of contraception
B: aggressivly supporting adoption as a viable alternative to abortion and
C: creating private and government welfare programs to support young mothers that cannot afford a child and thus are driven to abortions

...instead of opposing RvW, long term, the total number of abortions would be greatly reduced.

I think that if i was pro-life, i would want to focus my efforts on anything that would save those lives NOW, as opposed to going for the 'home run' of overturning RvW. Basicly, why isn't the pro-life crowd more pragmatic?


thoughts? am i missing something?

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A: increasing the public's awareness of effective methods of contraception
B: aggressivly supporting adoption as a viable alternative to abortion and
C: creating private and government welfare programs to support young mothers that cannot afford a child and thus are driven to abortions.

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A: Good idea.
B: This wouldn't be ideal. Promoting adoption would make people less likely to follow idea A, and would make orphanages even more crowded.
C: This would be abused.

[bholdr]

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A: Good idea.
B: This wouldn't be ideal. Promoting adoption would make people less likely to follow idea A, and would make orphanages even more crowded.
C: This would be abused.

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A: yes
B: ideally, adoption would be promoted primarily to those that are already pregnant and considering abortions. Many pro-life groups have tried to implement laws that put waiting peroids, parental notification requirements, etc, as conditions for getting abortions- perhaps providing education on adoption, and maybe even financial support during pregnancy as an incentive to forgo an abortion would be more effective than such antagonistic tactics. Orphanages are not at all crowded (with babies); There are many more people willing and eager to adopt than there are babies to adopt- someone needs to help get those folks together with women considering abortions.
C: of course, but: many, maybe even most abortions are the result of the mother's lack of alternatives- a poor or young woman cannot afford to raise a child on her own and thus considers abortion. financial and medical saftey nets provided by state governments, community orginizations including churches, and so on, could give many young women the option they lack. Also, like i've been saying, the funding for such community and church programs could, partially, come from the money that's being wasted fighting RvW.


Just to provide some context, I am pro-choice, but against abortions in the vast majority of cases. i think that people have a constitutional right to soverignty over their own bodies, and banning or restricting abortion rights screws with that too much to be acceptable, IMO. I would sincerly like to see the number of abortions greatly reduced, but not at the cost of important personal freedoms.

[SammyKid11]

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B: This wouldn't be ideal. Promoting adoption would make people less likely to follow idea A, and would make orphanages even more crowded.


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I haven't been back to Politics in a while, but I read this and had to comment. Are you KIDDING ME? You think the reason people have unsafe sex is because they know adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and/or raising the kid? REALLY??? If we promoted adoption people would have MORE unprotected sex.....because when you're sliding into bed with a woman, you're really thinking, "man, I'd slip on a Jimmy-Cap.....ahhh, forget it -- there's always adoption."

You might be crazy and/or a virgin if you in any way believe what you wrote.

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B: This wouldn't be ideal. Promoting adoption would make people less likely to follow idea A, and would make orphanages even more crowded.


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I haven't been back to Politics in a while, but I read this and had to comment. Are you KIDDING ME? You think the reason people have unsafe sex is because they know adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and/or raising the kid? REALLY??? If we promoted adoption people would have MORE unprotected sex.....because when you're sliding into bed with a woman, you're really thinking, "man, I'd slip on a Jimmy-Cap.....ahhh, forget it -- there's always adoption."

You might be crazy and/or a virgin if you in any way believe what you wrote.

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No, you aren't thinking of it on a large scale. If orphanages are banned then people will have less unprotected sex. Sure you are going to still have people who don't care, but on the macro scale you will have less people having unprotected sex if they know adoption isn't a viable option.

[bills217]

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A: incresing the public's awareness of effective methods of contraception

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"Effective methods of contraception" lead to people having sex, which leads to contraception failing a percentage of the time, which leads to unwanted pregnancies, which leads to abortions. Abortions went up dramatically after the introduction of "effective methods of contraception."

Also, anyone who believes life begins at conception would not support the use of birth control pills. A backup mechanism of common birth control pills prevents a conceived embryo from implanting in the uterus, creating an effective abortion. (The pharmaceutical companies get around this w/ their pro-life customers by using the word "implantation" in place of "conception.")

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B: aggressivly supporting adoption as a viable alternative to abortion

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As someone who stands outside an abortion clinic once a week urging women I encounter there to consider adoption and providing them with information on how to do so, I'm pretty sure we already do this.

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C: creating private and government welfare programs to support young mothers that cannot afford a child and thus are driven to abortions

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The alternative of adoption makes this clearly unnecessary.

Furthermore, I'm pretty sure babies were born and raised and nurtured before there was even such a thing as money.

[New001]

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A: incresing the public's awareness of effective methods of contraception

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"Effective methods of contraception" lead to people having sex, which leads to contraception failing a percentage of the time, which leads to unwanted pregnancies, which leads to abortions. Abortions went up dramatically after the introduction of "effective methods of contraception."

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I have a hunch that you'd find unwanted pregnancy rates go up when contraception use goes down.

[DVaut1]

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"Effective methods of contraception" lead to people having sex

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And here I thought it was hormones. Learn something new everyday, I guess.

[bills217]

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"Effective methods of contraception" lead to people having sex

[/ QUOTE ] And here I thought it was hormones. Learn something new everyday, I guess.

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I apologize. It was silly of me to think that Roe v. Wade, the introduction of "effective methods of contraception," and other factors resulted in people having more promiscuous sex. Apparently, this was instead caused by a sudden and dramatic biological change in human hormones that coincidentally happened around the same time. I must have missed that issue of Science magazine, but I'm glad I have DVaut1 to keep me up to date. Learn something new every day, I guess.

[SammyKid11]

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B: This wouldn't be ideal. Promoting adoption would make people less likely to follow idea A, and would make orphanages even more crowded.


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I haven't been back to Politics in a while, but I read this and had to comment. Are you KIDDING ME? You think the reason people have unsafe sex is because they know adoption is a viable alternative to abortion and/or raising the kid? REALLY??? If we promoted adoption people would have MORE unprotected sex.....because when you're sliding into bed with a woman, you're really thinking, "man, I'd slip on a Jimmy-Cap.....ahhh, forget it -- there's always adoption."

You might be crazy and/or a virgin if you in any way believe what you wrote.

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No, you aren't thinking of it on a large scale. If orphanages are banned then people will have less unprotected sex. Sure you are going to still have people who don't care, but on the macro scale you will have less people having unprotected sex if they know adoption isn't a viable option.

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I'm not making the same mistake as the last time I participated in this forum. If you think on ANY level that people's choices to use or not use protection when having sex has to do WHATSOEVER with adoption opportunities, you are simply living on a different planet than the one I inhabit. Good luck chasing your ideology on the path of theocracy -- this is the insanity that chased me away from this forum before. I'm done with this thread.