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Anna at DakotaWomen posts Exhibit #1 (or is that #1000?) in the case against wasting more valuable legislative time with another push for an abortion ban: a new international study of abortion trends from 1995 to 2003 finds "Women are just as likely to get an abortion in countries where it is outlawed as they are in countries where it is legal" [Maria Cheng, AP medical writer, "Legal Status Doesn't Deter Abortion," AP via USA Today, 2007.10.11].
Anna puts it straight:
So, to those of you who insist upon another attempt to outlaw abortion in South Dakota: please be upfront with the citizens about what you're actually hoping to accomplish. Because preventing abortion isn't what you're after.
Bullseye, Anna!
The cited study finds that 70,000 women die every year worldwide because of unsafe abortions. Another five million -- five million -- women suffer temporary or permanent injury from unsafe abortions. If you really care about women, you don't leave them with nothing but illegal, unsafe options. A simple ban does nothing but drive the problem underground and hurt more women.
This study should make it clear (at least to those who are willing to listen) that folks like Nathan Peterson, Jan Nicolay, and the Campaign for Healthy Families aren't trying to stifle debate or promote abortion. The Campaign for Healthy Families wants what everyone should want: healthy women. At the point where an abortion ban doesn't save babies, the debate hinges entirely on women's health, and the facts (remember those, Leslee?) show that making abortion illegal makes it unsafe and hurts women.
Anna and the CHF are right: "State legislators have done enough. Now it's up to South Dakota's families" [CHF petition]. Case closed, Legislature: now get back to work on the bigger issues of health care reform, education, and economic development.
South Dakota's abortion levels continue to decrease year after year through Education, not Legislation. Educated people will make smarter decisions, so if the State wants to be involved, let it fund awareness programs instead of trying legislate a trend that is becoming less of a factor each year.
ReplyDeleteWhile abortion bans might not save babies, abortions DEFINITELY do not save babies!
ReplyDeleteI have already researched this issue back in 2006. The study is not a study, but a biased survey. Note it was done by the research arm of Planned Parenthood. Common sense alone will tell you that abortion ban will reduce abortions. Go back and look at the stats from those pre-Roe years.
ReplyDeleteSo this study tells us that women should have their babies. Looking at simple math: 70 thousand attempts at giving birth would save 140 lives, child and mother.
ReplyDeleteFive million lives could be saved and five million botched abortion attempts would be lowered to zero had women attempted to birth their children.
5,070,000 pregnancies could have been prevented through abstinence.
I really care about women and their unborn children. Let's encourage them to have their babies. If they don't want to face pregnancy we should remind both men and women that abstinence is free and it works.
Bruce Whalen -
In that first paragraph the "140 lives" was meant to say 140,000 lives.
ReplyDeleteBruce -
This information is dubious at best. While South Dakota requires records be kept on legal abortions, many states don't, so there's a lot of guesswork involved even in legal abortions. As for illegal abortions, how many illegal abortionists keep records of their illegal activity? Where would such records of illegal activity be obtained? Guttmacher is likely pulling figures out of the air. Steven Mosher said in a recent column that while the Guttmacher study claims nearly 500,000 abortions in Columbia, the Vice Minister for Health of that country told him there were about 50 abortions performed. Guttmacher is a pro-abortion group, so the credibility of their research is automatically suspect.
ReplyDeleteThere are also a couple of critical problems with the logic proffered by these posts.
No one is forcing these women to have abortions, much less unsafe ones (unless perhaps it's the husband/boyfriends who are forcing them--is that "choice" for women?). Unless the woman is being coerced by a husband/boyfriend/parent to get an abortion, then she has made a conscious choice to subject herself to a dangerous procedure (whether legal or illegal). But no one is giving the unborn child a choice as to whether they live or get chopped up in their mother's womb. The child just gets destroyed and thrown out like so much garbage.
Your argument that we shouldn't ban abortions because abortion bans don't stop abortions is also fallacious. Making drug use illegal doesn't stop all drug use; should be legalize drug use? Making prostitution illegal doesn't stop all prostitution; should we legalize prostitution? Making tax evasion illegal doesn't stop all tax evasion; should we make tax evasion legal? Making speeding illegal doesn't stop all speeding; should we legalize speeding? Making rape illegal doesn't stop all rapes; should we legalize rape? Making murder illegal doesn't stop all murders; should we legalize murder? Are you ready to be consistent and make the case that these activities should be legal?
Do all of these pro-life people have any legitimate numbers on how many abortions were performed before Roe v Wade. I don't think they can find any verified numbers because few people would admit to having one or performing one at that time. I find it ironic that the pro-life people think the reason that women choose to have an abortion is because they are being forced to by their significant other. After all women do have the ability to think for themselves. Some of the comments here remind me of my ex-husband, who has a real low opinion of women's intelligence.
ReplyDeletefoxgrandma,
ReplyDeleteMy 80 year old mother, my aunt, my sister, my female cousin, my female friend, my wife and daughter, all are women and all are pro-birth. This is not women against men. This is about saving lives of unborn children.
Bruce -
Well, then if you want legal safe abortions, why not limit them to the reasons of to save the life of the mother, incest, or rape.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands now, abortions are mostly done for convenience and are a last minute method of birth control, not to mention a huge money operation for Planned Parenthood.
One side wants to outlaw all abortions, the other wants to allow all abortions for any reason whenever, whatever. Why not compromise? Except that while the prolife side probably would, I can't see the pro-abortion side doing so. And to call pro-abortion or pro-choice or whatever a "campaign for healthy families" is a outright misuse of words. There's nothing healthy about abortion to the baby being aborted, a small, small essential that the pro-aborts refuse to consider.
Again, the point: there is no evidence that banning abortion produces the results abortion-banners (and the rest of us) want, fewer abortions. This study shows that abortion bans do not correlate with lower abortion rates.
ReplyDelete