There was this sign I used to hold as a kid when we went to pro-life rallies, which typically consisted of long lines of families standing on the sidewalk. It said, like all the other signs said, “Stop Abortion Now.” Once, when I was nine, some guy jumped out of a van with a television camera and asked why I was holding the sign. I looked at the ground, embarrassed. “Well,” I said tentatively “Because I think God would want us to stand up for the little babies.”
I still think that in an ideal world, there would be no abortion whatsoever. None. Oddly enough, I think you could get just about everybody to agree on this. Even if you don’t believe that humanity begins at conception, as (apparently) St. Augustine did not, even if you don’t think the Bible equates abortion with homicide, as conservative Jews do not, and even if you’re neutral about the moral implications of accidental pregnancy, it’s still not a choice that you want to ever have to make. Maybe you make it to save your own life. Maybe you make it because you’re 17 and your parents are going to disown you. Maybe you make it because you can’t afford to feed another person. Maybe you make it because you have no idea who the father is. None of these are particularly wonderful realities to be faced with, and probably, you’re fully aware that if you could change the reality, then you wouldn’t have to make this decision.
Back when I was nine, I wanted people to outlaw abortion. I had Stop Abortion Now club in my room a couple of times, where I talked about writing strongly-worded letters and opinion pieces on the subject. I composed my will on a sheet of legal paper and declared that half my bank account should go to the Right To Life in the event of my untimely demise. I mean, I was only nine (or so) years from having had the possibility of that being done to me, and that was kind of appalling, especially as a kid who had not been planned. I thought making it illegal would take care of it.
This last week, a full 21 years later, I got curious and started doing actual research as to whether this was true. Apparently, it’s not. Statistically, making it illegal doesn’t decrease the rate of abortion. In many countries where it’s prohibited or highly restricted, in fact, the abortion rates are quite a bit higher than the United States. Consider this extensive compilation of abortion rates by country, for example.
This really shouldn’t come as a surprise. People do things that are illegal all the time; that’s why an entire stadium will smell like pot at a concert. That’s why there are speeding tickets and jails and cops and lawyers and judges.
If you seriously want to stop abortion, you have to change the baseline realities that lead to abortion. So, let’s consider the places that have the lowest instances of abortion. First on the list: the Netherlands. Yes, that’s right. Pretty much the most liberal country on the planet has the lowest rate of abortion on the planet. Ironic, isn’t it?
Well, not really. For one thing, the Netherlands is also one of the most egalitarian countries on the planet, especially when it comes to gender roles. This is true even though many Dutch women are still stay-at-home mothers and the Dutch are still very family-oriented. But when, as a woman, you know your voice counts, you also know that your “no” supersedes his “yes,” and hence, you can refuse him if you want — even if he’s an authority figure.
Contraception is also widely available in the Netherlands, and people expect you to use it — you’re basically considered an idiot if you have unprotected sex unless you’re trying to have a child. This goes for many Western European countries where abortion rates are low, and this doesn’t necessarily make these countries less monogamous or more likely to engage in sex earlier. French women, for example, are actually more monogamous than American women, as it turns out.
The baseline reality that often leads to abortion is a disconnect between theoretical belief and what actually happens. Take the highly Catholic country of Peru, where abortion is outlawed in most cases — it has an exponentially higher abortion rate than Western Europe or even America. Consider the abortion rate of the predominantly Catholic country Chile, where not only is abortion illegal, but divorce is as well. Heck, take America. Apparently, 65% of abortions are performed on those claiming to be Christians — and American Evangelical Christians are hugely opposed to premarital sex, at least in theory. Which is probably why they aren’t using contraception. Because, you know, it’s less bad if it’s not premeditated.
At least until you realize you’re pregnant, and that there’s no way you can be pregnant without ruining your life and what everybody thinks of you. And then what do you do?
Faced with these kinds of statistics, you often get people saying that what we really need is to just start making an example of unwed mothers, who obviously didn’t take sex seriously enough, and return to the good old days when Family Values really counted for something. Only I have yet to find an era where this actually worked. Punishing unwed mothers resulted in systematic infanticide in Victorian England, for example. In the colonies and in early American history, single mothers were punished more harshly than the men who sired their children, though this somehow did not stop men from siring illegitimate children, sometimes with slaves. In the 1940s and 1950s, single mothers could be forced into places like the Magdalene Laundries — or merely kept out of sight and coerced into relinquishing their children — and their offspring were sometimes subjected to cruelty or sexual abuse, as in the case of the Duplessis Orphans. Even the combination of making abortion illegal and the widespread practice of something like female genital mutilation, which makes sex painful for women, does not prevent abortion, as evidenced by Kenya, where about 300,000 illegal abortions are performed every year — a per-woman rate about four times higher than the per-woman rate in the Netherlands.
In Kenya, interestingly enough, “Men are the decision makers in society, and this trickles down even to sexual issues. Men are the ones to decide how and when to have sex,” says Jean Kaggi, Chairwoman of the Protecting Life Movement of Kenya. Which brings us back to the egalitarian thing. Places with high abortion rates tend to be more hierarchical, which means, overall, that men make the decision to have sex and women are the ones punished for it, especially in the case of illegal and dangerous abortions. In fact, the countries with the highest rates of abortion seem to have a perfect storm of hierarchical gender roles, limited access to contraception, and poor sex education. Sometimes this occurs where abortion is highly restricted, as in Latin America, or it may occur where it is barely restricted at all, as in Eastern Europe — but in general, a reputable team of researchers has recently found that “Restrictive abortion laws are not associated with lower abortion rates.” They even go so far as to suggest that the opposite may be true.
So how does one stop abortion, then? It will not be accomplished by politicians placing legal sanctions on it. It will not be accomplished by religious institutions placing moral sanctions on it, at least not combined with sanctions on gender equality and contraception. Based on the evidence, and on basic logic, it will best be accomplished by allowing people to take full responsibility for their sexuality and fertility.
By this, I do not mean that the official line should be “don’t have sex, ever, unless you, as a married person, fully intend to procreate or are willing to accept that procreation may be a result of your action.” First of all, not everyone believes non-procreational sex is wrong, and this tends to balance out the logic that abstinence (and the luck to not get raped) is the only fail-proof method of birth control. Not everyone — in fact, the vast majority of Americans — is actually willing to wait for marriage to have sex.
And even if you do wait, like I did, there’s no guarantee that the person you marry is going to be around in the long term. This means that even if you did everything “right” and have the self-control of a high-wire artist, you could still end up as a single mother facing a less than ideal future if you haven’t been using some form of birth control. Which, personally, I used. But I know too many divorced and separated women who are, or have been, single mothers through no real fault of their own to be smug about this.
What this type of responsibility requires is honesty with yourself: what you intend to do, what you’re willing to do, what you will not do. It requires that you be willing, and able, to discuss these things with your partner if and when you have one. It requires that you, as a sexual creature, be educated in contraceptive use, the inherent risks of sex, how (and why) procreation works, and how to respond when you’re faced with a situation you’re not comfortable with. This type of responsibility does not hide in female “weakness” (I’m a girl, so it’s a guy’s job to take care of me and to make the hard decisions) or male “weakness” (I’m a guy, so it’s the girl’s job to say no and make sure she doesn’t tempt me). It doesn’t hide behind the beliefs of a larger body of people. It doesn’t lie or coerce; usually, people can tell when you’re making something seem worse or better than it is — at least when they start doing their own research. This is exactly the type of education and responsibility that is prevalent in places like the Netherlands where abortion is most rare.
It also requires that you, male or female, have access to and be willing to use contraception (correctly) if you’re not ready to have a kid but you are willing to get jiggy with it. There are a whole slew of options, and more on the horizon.
This is not an idealistic approach so much as a pragmatic approach. However, I do think that, paradoxically, if you are willing to take responsibility for your own sexuality, and its potential consequences on yourself and other people, you may actually wait longer to have sex. You may not wait until marriage, depending on your belief system. But you’ll wait until you’re sure.
And if now that you’ve gone through all this (and possibly done your own research through credible sources to verify it), you’re thinking: it doesn’t matter if it actually decreases abortion, we should still make it illegal in order for punishment to occur, then I don’t think you should consider yourself pro-life. If you think the horrors of back-ally abortion-related maternal death are a more appropriate way to deal with abortion rates than education and birth control, in spite of what statistics actually tell us, then don’t call yourself pro-life. Just come out and own your point of view. You want the rest of the world to be punished if they don’t think just like you do, believe what you believe, and keep it in their pants unless you say it’s OK. And you really don’t care how many abortions are done, as long as you don’t have to see them and you can condemn those who have them.
Botkin Creative 
Here’s a thought: Part of the reason that abortion prohibitions don’t necessarily decrease the incidence of abortion is because those prohibitions are usually structured as restrictions on the practice of medicine – something like hunting without a license. But the best justification for any opposition to abortion is that abortion is murder. So prosecute abortion like you prosecute murder. I can assure you that countries where murder is prosecuted have a lower incidence of murder than countries where it is not. So charge the doctor with murder and the woman (and the man, to the extent he encouraged the “procedure”) with conspiracy to commit murder. The fundamental problem with all of our legal regimes governing abortion is that we don’t act as though a life is being taken – but it is. Coupled with measures to care for “unwanted” children – which in this infertile society of $30,000 adoptions need never be – this would both foster the deterrent objectives you’ve sought and bring the law into harmony with the morality that underlies it.
Do you have any evidence to back that assumption up, like stats on countries that do prosecute abortion as murder? I’m honestly curious, because everything I’ve found out so far seems pretty counter-intuitive. Also, in order to prosecute abortion as murder, you would need to actually establish that it is murder. Ending the existence of something that is alive isn’t murder per se. If you’re going to use a standard like “murder begins at conception” you need to back it up with something. The Bible certainly doesn’t teach that, at least according to most of the Hebrew scholars I’ve read, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who honestly thinks that a fertilized human egg is exactly the same as a newborn. Most people, even staunchly pro-life people, don’t have funerals if they miscarry at 5 weeks gestation. As for adoption, that’s a great option, I agree — assuming someone isn’t going to slit your throat for being pregnant — but you and I both know the world already contains overflowing orphanages and overflowing foster care systems, so to insinuate that promoting adoption (rather than birth control and education) is the (only) answer seems pretty naive.
Katie, I don’t think there are actually any countries that prosecute abortion as murder, but I think it’s pretty clear that where murder is prosecuted – regardless of whether the death penalty is given – the murder rate decreases. Although the data you cite would appear to suggest that legal prohibitions of abortion increase abortion, a question they don’t answer is whether the punishments associated with that prohibition create the efficient amount of deterrence.
You’re right that I would have to establish that abortion is murder, but as I noted, the belief that abortion is murder – that it has intentionally ended a human life without provocation and outside the confines of war – is the principal, if not only, reason that anyone opposes it. If abortion is not murder, if it’s not ending a life, why do we care (other than potential adverse health consequences to the mother, which, while significant, certainly would not warrant the fury coursing through the pro-life movement)?
The question for life isn’t whether it is “exactly the same as a newborn”; what the Scriptures do teach is that God Himself is working to create the child in the womb. That, to me, seems sufficient to regard the child as a person. Or consider when Elizabeth met Mary, and John the Baptist lept inside her womb at the presence of she who was carrying Jesus. For that matter, how do you make sense of the incarnation – that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit – if the child conceived isn’t a person? Was Jesus the man little more than a zygote until He reached six months and attained “viability,” such that the Supreme Court of the United States would allow His life to be protected?
My proposal to prosecute abortion as murder does not exclude other complementary approaches, such as the birth control and education that you recommend, but given the nature of what is being protected, it should be a minimum starting point. Indeed, the most important education we can give on this subject is that the child in the womb is life and that abortion is murder. If that were the prevailing cultural belief – rather than “my body,” “just tissue,” “fetus” – it would go a long way toward decreasing abortions.
Nor do I recommend adoption as the only answer. At least within America, it would help a lot. Even if orphanages abroad are overflowing, there are plenty of couples in America longing for but unable to have a child, whose wants could be answered by adoption. And if there’s some patriarch lurking around who will “slit your throat” for being pregnant, well, there are murder charges for him as well.
Katie- I think this is one of the most thoughtful and appropriate discussions on the problem and its solutions. Thank you for this well presented and documented stand. I support it entirely.
Abortion is by its nature a private family issue. The responsibility to choose belongs to the parents, whether you like it or not. Even if it were murder (and OT law certainly doesn’t seem to treat accidental death of a fetus as such), you couldn’t prosecute it as murder. It can be attempted easily enough at home and in secret. Even the father wouldn’t have to know what really happened.
Not that I think abortion is anything but horrible, even if medically necessary (especially now that I’ve been pregnant).
Maybe children find it easy to stand firmly against abortion because they identify more closely with the victims. My daughter (7) was appalled at the idea of contraception because she thought that the only way to keep from having unlimited numbers of babies was to kill them before they came out.
Davis, when you say that “the most important education we can give on this subject is that the child in the womb is life and that abortion is murder,” you’re ignoring what is actually going on. This is exactly the point of the “education” that is being offered in Latin American countries like Chile and Peru, and it’s backed up by legal sanctions against abortion to boot. But this doesn’t stop it. It increases it, comparitively speaking, because (due to the same system of beliefs) birth control is also equated with murder, single mothers are scorned, and bastard children are scorned as well. Any other children you might have will be dragged into the gutter with your shame and lack of basic resources. As a woman in a society like that (or in one, perhaps more accurately, like Afghanistan), you can bet that it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been told that abortion is murder. You’re going to look at the situation and rationalize the difference, and try to minimize harm, which, in a society like this, will be to choose abortion. Yes, even if it is treated as murder. Even if you worry that it might, in fact, be murder. You could potentially get away with murder; you will not get away from the slow, painful death of ostracisization for you and any other people already in your care.
That’s really my whole point. It doesn’t matter what kind of sanctions you place on abortion; they won’t stop it, because It’s not a choice people want to have to make in the first place. So give them a way — a real way, not just some line about how it’s bad and how sex is bad — to not ever be faced with that choice. Personal responsibility (combined with a solid understanding of procreation, date rape etc) is really a pretty good place to start. Compassion and respect for single mothers, as well as solid ways for them to earn an income to support a child, will be crucial as well. This would probably look too much like welfare to make the average Republican pro-lifer comfortable, though. And that’s really unfortunate.
Here’s something else that I actually just thought of. In any court of law, in order to prove that someone is murdered, you have to prove not just that someone is killed — that’s not murder, per se; it could be self defense, it could be manslaughter — but you have to prove intent. If someone does not believe that he/she is killing a human being, you cannot prove, by this standard, that murder was committed; the intent could even be argued to be self-defense (which is sort of how Jewish rabbis categorize it when the life of the mother is in jeopardy). Kind of a weird argument, but I think it’s valid. And I think this is one reason why no country in the world, not even the most conservative, is actually willing to prosecute abortion as murder. You’d never win the case. Not honestly. Not unless you did something like provide evidence of a woman willingly announcing “I am going to kill my baby now because I enjoy the thought of killing my baby.” This is why I think doing something like sentencing women who have had abortions as if they were murderers is pretty much unconscionable.
And no, that does not make me an abortion-lover. It just means I’m not wiling to “fix” a high rate of abortion by adding to it a high rate of e.g. capital punishment for women who have them.
You say that abortion is treated like murder in these other countries, but I believe this is only as a social matter, not a judicial matter. It is the judicial treatment for which I am arguing (and effectively upping the intensity of the treatment as a social matter), which I believe would be a step above what any country currently does.
With respect to your argument about intent, the law cares about whether the actions were intentional and whether they intended to cause the result, not whether the actor subjectively believed that what he or she was killing was a person or not. It would be a curious society that would exonerate a murderer simply because he thought his victims sub-human. If we define children in the womb as people, we have no choice but to define abortion as murder. Proving the case would not be difficult; you’d only have to prove that the actor intentionally killed that which the law considers to be a person. And when a society is on notice of the child’s status as such, there is nothing unconscionable about prosecuting the perpetrator, the doctor, and the conspirators, the woman and potentially the man as well, for the crime.
I think what is strong about Katie’s argument is its acceptance that we are likely to never agree on the moral judgment about abortion. And so, in light of that, how might we best prevent it, which is what everyone CAN agree on? and her research into that approach is very enlightening. So is that what we want, to prevent the need? or just punish those who find themselves in an awful choice. Where is the most good done?
lisahj: very well said, and concise. I like that in a comment.
Davis:
Thank you for speaking out in favor of justice for the murdered unborn while still acknowledging that punishment for murderers is compatible with other non-punitive measures to reduce the frequency of child murder. Many in our society find sexual expedience sufficient cause for child-abuse and attempt to suppress this natural knowledge so that they can “innocently” practice murder on children by classifying it medically as a form of “birth control”. Christian’s must be a light to the pagan and pseudo-Christian world by insisting that civil society defend the defenseless and punish murderers regardless of whether the place of the crime is within or without the womb.
I think this post is an important contribution to the wider discussion on the interplay between issues like women’s rights and fetal personhood, not necessarily because I completely agree with the conclusions, but because it is a great example of how the discussion can be approached in a way more informed by fact than vitriol. Our entire arena of social and political discourse could be far more productive and beneficial if people would read more and yell less.
There are still questions that could be further addressed. For example, the final paragraph of your post paints a rather unfavorable picture of people who seem to prioritize a top-down legislative approach above one that may be (arguably) more effective at attaining a reduced abortion rate and protecting more life. You say that these people should stop calling themselves “pro-life” and then, the way I read it, go on to imply that the motivation of anyone in this category is self-promotion through punishment of dissidents, and that they’re indifferent to the tragedy itself once it’s been classified as a crime. Now, it’s entirely possible that you’ve had contact almost exclusively with people who are like this, and sadly, a reality devoid of such people seems implausibly far-fetched. But — and you’ve recognized that the view you’re expressing here is more pragmatic than idealistic — is there any room left in your perspective for well-intentioned idealists? What suggestions do you have for how to value human life without making it an idol above its Creator? (Is such an offense even possible?)
A second topic, inspired by your reply to a comment above (re: funerals for a miscarriage at 5 weeks): why do we have funerals at all? The memorial service for a centenarian who succumbs to age looks very different from that of a high-school valedictorian killed by a drunk driver. Along with the miscarriage, there is a sense of loss in all three cases, but a differing degree of the sense of tragedy. It may be that there is a baseline intrinsic value that all humans share — even the unicellular ones — but that the funeral helps survivors cope with the loss of something beyond this. I haven’t explored this topic much, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the implication that our response to a spontaneous abortion is somehow indicative of the personhood status of the unborn.
Thank you for your thoughts. If you don’t get to these questions (surely there are others you’ll be busy tackling!), no hard feelings!
Katie,
Certainly an interesting blog post. I also believe that abortion is not simply a legal issue but the problem is much, much deeper than that. The problem with abortion lies within the hearts and minds and circumstances of the people.
I believe we should work to make society more accepting of pregnancies, easier for mothers to care for their children. But I also believe that, as a nation, we should not condone abortion. It is never a good option, for the mother, for the child, for the father.
You certainly bring up interesting points, though, and I appreciate that. But you really shouldn’t paint all pro-lifers with the same brush (your last paragraph). Research can easily be manipulated and just because what you found supports your view doesn’t mean it’s totally conclusive. Also, those who want abortion to be illegal don’t all want to see punishment distributed, or don’t care about back-alley abortions, or what have you. There might be more to that viewpoint than you give credit for. Just a thought. 🙂
For Life and Liberty,
Sarah
I don’t have any shame in “owning” my true position: I am anit-choice. But it’s quite a leap to suggest that I am not pro-life because I don’t think abortion should be legal merely on the grounds that those nation-states that have loose abortion laws have lower abortion rates.
I realized long ago that I am not as intelligent or as articulate as you are but this is a deeply flawed argument, and if I can get around to it, I’ll refute it.
Kate (et al): I wasn’t saying people aren’t “pro-life” because they’re anti-abortion. To a large extent, I’m anti-abortion myself. I was saying that if you want it to be illegal in order for punishment to occur (regardless of whether it actually saves lives) that’s not a position that has anything to do with being “pro” “life,” really. It’s a position that has to do with punishing people. I’m not saying all people who do want abortion made illegal actually think that way, although I’m not sure what else they’re hoping to accomplish with it. Obviously, there’s no point in it being illegal if there isn’t some form of punishment for people who do it anyway.
One of my friends recently told me that she had been trying to convince another friend not to have an abortion. She even went so far as to suggest that she would have an open adoption and call herself the “auntie” if her friend wanted. I was really impressed by her attitude about it. She is very, very anti-abortion, but she wasn’t cutting her friend off or telling her she derved e.g. murder charges or trying to shuttle her off to some unseen silver bullet of an adoption agency. And in general, that’s what I think is missing from a lot of this. You are not going to solve abortion by painting girls who get them as whores or murderers; you’re not going to solve it by treating them like trash or locking them away.
Katie,
Some thoughts. First, it will surprise criminologists world-wide to learn that for every other type of behavior restrictive laws serve as a deterrent, but not for abortion. This simply defies common sense. For example, the number of abortions in the United States increased in the late 60s and early 70s as some states liberalized their abortion laws. The number then skyrocketed after Roe v. Wade eliminated virtually all restriction on abortion, peaking at 1.5 million abortions a year. Note that no one really presents an argument as to WHY restrictive abortion laws increase the number of abortions. A serious study would look at all factors that might lead to an increase in the abortion rate. Examples might include per capita GDP, level of religiosity, education level, number of doctors per capita etc.
Second, getting numbers on abortions in many countries is extremely dicey. Notice that most of the news article you link do not report official numbers (because there are none or are unreliable) but instead rely on estimates. That’s what the Lancet study you cite does. But if you actually read the study, what the researchers do is establish what they consider an observable number of abortions and then just arbitrarily create a multiplier to come up with their number of abortions per nation. For example, for Bangladesh they multiply by 3. In other words they observe a number of abortions (although their method of even getting to this number is dubious), and then assume, with no evidence, that the number of abortions is 300% higher! That is rotten science.
So Augustine did not believe life begins at conception. Neither did Aquinas. But on that subject let me quote novelist, philosopher and medical doctor Walker Percy: “There is a wonderful irony here. It is this: The onset of individual life is not a dogma of the church but a fact of science. How much more convenient if we lived in the 13th century, when no one knew anything about microbiology and arguments about the onset of life were legitimate. Compared to a modern textbook of embryology, Thomas Aquinas sounds like an American Civil Liberties Union member. Nowadays it is not some misguided ecclesiastics who are trying to suppress an embarrassing scientific fact. It is the secular juridical-journalistic establishment.” Here is a passage from Keith Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, in The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, a widely used textbook in embryology: “Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell — a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual” Or how about Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller, in their book Human Embryology and Teratology: “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.” And look at that, I didn’t even have to cite the Bible. I just cited a philosopher/medical doctor and two medical text books.
To call abortion “murder” is sloppy use of language. Murder requires a certain motivation and knowledge of what one is doing. But it is definitely a homicide (as honest pro-choice advocates like Naomi Wolfe readily admit). Even early in pregnancy we have a life (that is indisputable). And it isn’t a lizard, a dog, a clown fish or anything else. It is human life, as the text books above say. People put forth all sorts of arguments as to why it is ok to take that life. They deeply worry me. They mostly come down to the conclusion that human life is disposable if it gets in the way of me achieving self-fulfillment and/or some human life is inferior (think the Downs Syndrome baby) and thus dispensable. Not sound thinking. Neither is the notion that abortion is a private matter. First, it would be a great innovation in our legal system to say that the taking of a life is purely a private matter, privatizing the use of lethal force. Second, this notion that I should take a “don’t care” attitude about something so central to who we are and who we want to be as a people, namely the question of what is life and how should we protect it, is absurd. And let’s look at the Declaration of Independence. It says that life in an inalienable right. Further, it says the very purpose of government is to protect those rights (“that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men”). Therefore, the subject of what is life and how we should protect it is by its very nature a public, not private, matter.
Or I’ll let my husband do it. ^
Katie: You have researched this in depth and I wonder if you are considering an abortion? If so I would encourage you to visit the Crisis Pregnancy Center.
Prea, I’m not sure who you are, but no. People can research topics without being interested in personally undertaking them. Especially since this isn’t a pro-abortion post. It’s a long-term suggestion for how to cut down on its high numbers. Again, I suggest that education and more than knee-jerk reactions like “You’re talking about this. Let me suggest you visit the Crisis Pregnancy Center” (If you know me, as you seem to suggest, and you’re really concerned that’s a possibility and want to provide support, then I would hope you would do more than leave an anonymous comment on my blog).
As for the legality, there are any number of things that don’t seem to go down (by country) just because they’re illegal. Take pot, for example. The US supposedly has a higher rate of consumption than the Netherlands, and I am reasonably certain these statistics are accurate, given what I know of the two countries. Typically a thing flourishes despite its illegality given the cultural realities, and I’m saying that even if you just look at the countries with official abortion rates, there are definite things you can do to cut back on abortion (e.g. provide sex education and contraception), but you have to be willing to do them.
One of my friends just sent me this link to an article reiterating some of the stuff I’m suggesting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/evangelicals-sex-frank-talk_n_1443062.html?ref=religion&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
Who is this “YOU” of whom you speak (“definite things you can do”)?
That people break a law in great numbers is not an argument against a law. We’re not libertarians.
The closer I get to my creator, the farther I get from religion. The only enemies Jesus had were the elders of the church who arrested him and crusified him after an unfair trial. Christ was an unplanned pregnancy himself. Born to a poor teenage mother with no husband in a time when the hardships people had to face claimed 50% of children under 5. He realizes first hand the struggles mankind will endure. His own pregnant Mother choose to trust in God the Father that she and her baby would be okay. So if you could separate Jesus from religion, you may under stand that abortion is an issue between a mother and the Creator of life. It is deffinantly not about religion, but trust in Him. Will you trust the plans He has for you. As a Mother of 5, two of which were aborted intentionally,, trusting God may not always seem easy. However, the alternative can seem unbearable at times.