It’s a whole list of:

I don’t care, the government will pay my Ins.

I forgot to use birth control

I ran out out of birth control meds and didn’t have time to pick it up

We just got carried away, we didn’t have time to use protection

I can just get an abortion, I don’t have time for a baby

I should get help from the government, it’s not my fault that I bought a home to expensive to pay for. It must be the realtors fault, or the mortgage company, NOT MINE

My kids should get a free breakfast and lunch at school, I don’t have enough money, – I bought an SUV and the payments are too high, the gas costs to much.

The public school should offer free after school care so I don’t have to pay for a baby sitter, I have credit cards to pay.

I need the same PPO health Ins, as those who make more money, not fair that I have an HMO, my employer can pay for it, after all he owns the company.

Poor me, I bought an SUV, a home, furniture, ran my credit cards to the limit (new clothes and furniture) and now I can’t afford all this – It’s Bush’s fault, or those guys in N.Y. or maybe that bunch in Washington D.C. one things for sure IT ISN’T MY FAULT, and I’m not going to take it, I’ll vote for the socialist thingy, it might save my bacon after all!

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actually scientifically focused sex education is increasingly hard to get. But indeed abortion seems to be going down:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States

So it would seem that there are some positive forces driving this.

What is perhaps interesting is to note the high rate of fall in the 1990s and the slowing down of this fall in the 2000s.

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- if we are allowing birth control as an effort to reduce abortion, we will inded have to supprot birth control.

And at this point a clinical discussion is perhaps in order. As I understand the term, clinically an abortion is a termination of a pregnancy after the embryo has been emplanted in the womb.

As such IUDs, oral birth control, and morning after pills are not abortion.

We will yet again see the honesty and transparency of the anti-abortion forces when we explore whether they are indeed willing to work with the FDA discussion on contraception:

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1997/397_baby.html

as the model for deployment of contraception techniques.

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because of course there is a deep divide between the assumptional position of the strong anti-abortion forces and the pro-abortion forces (wording explicitly chose this way).

I believe it is fair to say that there will be some abortions in early pregnancy under any plausible compromise: the majority of the U.S. seems to favor it and it is well supported by an individual right to privacy argument and the consideration that an early stage fetus is not yet a human being.

I suggest we can do two things:

1) we can reduce the number of early abortions by widespread sex education and deployment of birth control

2) we can probably tighten the standards for late term abortions and in particular abortions after viability

These seem feasible given the poll numbers which have been entered into the discussion.

And my sense is that we will see just this under an Obama administration.

The interesting question will be will anti-abortion forces work on these plausibly achievable goals or will they stick with their hard positions?

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I know for certain that people do.

The women I know who have had abortions (and there are not many) spent a lot of time agonizing over the decision and still, years later, carry regrets and emotional scars.

Yes, many feel this way, and if abortion hadn’t been an available option, of course, they wouldn’t have been able to give in to their fear of bearing a child, and they wouldn’t have to live with these lifelong regrets.

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You’re only proving me right: Democrats are lying when they say they’re interested in reducing abortions. I told you it’s not either ban or educate. It’s some of both/and. You didn’t address any of the other points I made. What about liberals’ unwavering opposition to all restrictions? What about the fact that sex education HAS increased but abortion rates haven’t fallen proportionally? Ignorance is no excuse in this day and age.

Why do the vast number of women who are merely inconvenienced by their pregnancy need to abort their children just so a small number of rape victims can abort theirs? It’s not logical.

Anyway, as I said, you will get your way when Obama becomes President. I hope for your sake–and his–that abortion rates do in fact go down.

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we can say with certainty that a number of anti-abortioon proponents have demonstrated a high level of emotionalism around this case. One of the side effects would appear to be using extreme cases and extreme language to further their cause.

And it is interesting that most of this emotion centers on later term abortions.

So let me take you at your word that this is not emotional partisanship and that the greatest worry is regarding late term abortions (if it is not, then I renenter the partisanship argument).

So for example, the wikipedia article which Matt Y has been references suggests that 90% of abortions occur during the first and second trimester. Given the sensibilities expressed might it perhaps be possible to write clinicaally meaningful regulation to minimize abortions in the third trimester?

And I note that already the court specifically regulated abortion after viability (or effectively the third trimester):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

“Roe v. Wade centrally held that a mother may abort her pregnancy for any reason, up until the “point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable.’” The Court defined viable as being potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability usually occurs at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”[1] The Court also held that abortion after viability must be available when needed to protect a woman’s health, which the Court defined broadly in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton. These rulings affected laws in 46 states.[3]”

So we are talking about 10% of abortion cases in a period where there is increasing chance of viability of the fetus outside the womb. My sense is that if we work on the health clause for this specific period, that a compromise of sorts might be possible.

And your thoughts?

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