This message was self-deleted by its author

[haele]

135. Actually, they aren't different issues.

Last edited Thu Feb 2, 2012, 12:57 AM - Edit history (1)

Is there a difference between a therapeutic abortion -which is what they called a medically necessary abortion back before RvW - and an elective abortion, or an abortion with a viable fetus or a non-viable fetus?
To really evaluate the question of the number of abortions and what that means, you need to break down that 332,278 abortions per year number into categories - therapeutic/medical necessity for life or health of the mother or a non-viable fetus, therapeutic/elective (the woman and her family would be economically harmed or there is a mental or emotional hardship if she carried a baby to term) or totally elective - you know - the stereotyped PP abortion - where a low-class female who uses abortion as a form of birth control or a single party girl made a mistake she's trying to correct. The realty of the last category, of course, is usually made by a woman in a committed relationship who doesn't want to have a child at that time.
I can look at that PP number, and it means very little in an overall context. It's a symptomatic number, at best, and the Anti-Abortionist moral questions aside - it actually seems to be a reasonable number, considering the amount of sexual activity the average healthy person in the US engages in that has nothing to do with reproduction.
What this number does carry with it in an overall context is evidence the lack of availability of reproductive health care - and points a direction at the myths that this rather schizophrenic culture spreads concerning sexual responsibility and personal autonomy.
What number would you want to see? I know that most Anti-Abortionists (I refuse to call the pro-lifers, as if they were pro-life, they would be more interested in fixing the actual causes of abortions than regulating a symptom) would say "no abortions", but then we might be looking at 10,000 to 50,000 additional fatalities or cases of sterility or reproductive disability in women of childbearing age. What does that mean when a family loses its mother, or a young woman who would make a great mother will never be able to have children?
If all you see is one raw number, and none of the causes for that number, then you are arguing a strawman based on your personal feelings.
With better education and a better economy, that abortion number will go down. Closing Planned Parenthood and access to therapeutic and elective abortions only makes it more dangerous for the women who need the service.


Haele