Why more, not fewer, abortions are a good thing

[TC]

http://www.abortionreview.org/images/uploads/AR_issue_24.pdf

Ann Furendi wrote this brilliant article proving once again that she's *freak'n awesome* and everyone who says abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" is a social conservative patriarchal idiot:


"The ‘problem’ of the rising abortion rate in Britain has been the subject of much policy and media discussion in recent years. The number of abortions in Britain has been steadily increasing, reaching 193,700 in 2006. This is a source of frustration to government ministers because it is happening at the same time as a concerted drive to implement a sexual health strategy to reduce the number of abortions, which has meant that many more resources are being put into reducing the need for abortion. What has also emerged as a source of distress to policymakers is that the number of women having ‘repeat’ abortions also seems to be increasing: almost one third of women under the age of 25 who have one abortion report that they have had one previously. This is despite the fact that a wider range of contraception is available, and that the authorities are actively encouraging the use of long-acting reversible methods of contraception (LARCs).

Why is there a continuing high rate of abortion? In my view it is quite simple: there are a lot of people out there having sex who don’t want to have children. This might sound facetious, but it is not. In Britain today there is a clearly-defined trend for women to delay the age at which they start to have children. In the mid-1970s, women were on average starting their families in their mid-twenties - now the age of first childbirth is in the late twenties, and the average age at which women have children has reached 29. This means that there are a lot of people who are sexually active, possibly in ongoing relationships, possibly living with partners, who simply do not want to factor in a child at this point in their lives. It is arguable that, if women in this situation do become pregnant, they are probably much more likely these days to terminate the pregnancy than continue it to term.

There is also an increasing number of women who are choosing to remain childless altogether. One in five women is now childless at 45. There has been some discussion about whether this is to do with increased infertility, perhaps to do with an increased incidence of sexually transmitted infections, but in general the statistics reflect a more conscious shift in women’s priorities: namely that many women have got many other things to do in their lives, and they do not particularly want to have any family at all at any time. So it puts them in a situation where they are more likely to terminate a pregnancy.
I would argue that we have a large cohort of people who either don’t want to have children or don’t want to have children at this particular time. As a society, we have a very high expectation of family planning and birth control: we expect to be able to decide when to have children; there is a far greater sense of reproductive choice than there was in the past; and in Britain and America certainly, there is a strong sense of the need for parents to be responsible for their children. The popular press is full of discussion about the ‘problem’ of parents who do not pay enough attention to their children, who do not think carefully enough about their needs, and this illustrates a general climate in which parenting is seen to be something that should be taken very seriously, and opted into with a great deal of forethought. The idea that you would become a parent because a condom split is something that people don’t generally find very acceptable; and in this context, abortion is seen by many people as a responsible decision.
Abortion and parental responsibility

Caitlin Moran, a columnist for The Times (London), argued this point eloquently in April 2007, in an article headlined ‘Abortion: why it’s the ultimate motherly act’. ‘My belief in the ultimate sociological, emotional and practical necessity for abortion even stronger after I had my two children’, she wrote. ‘It is only after you have had a nine-month pregnancy, laboured to get the child out, fed it, cared for it, sat with it until 3am, risen with it at 6am, swooned with love for it and been reduced to furious tears by it that you really understand just how important it is for a child to be wanted. And, possibly even more importantly, to be wanted by a reasonably sane, stable mother.’


Moran’s own abortion was, she says, ‘one of the least difficult decisions of my life’: ‘I’m not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what work-tops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being…While there was, of course, every chance that I might eventually be thankful for the arrival of a third child, I am, personally, not a gambler. I won’t spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high.’ (1)

A study by Rachel Jones and colleagues at the Guttmacher Institute in New York, published in January 2008, gives some empirical context to the viewpoint argued by Moran (2). The study, titled ‘I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World’: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions, began by noting that, contrary to the general perception that women who have abortions are a different group to those who are mothers, 61 per cent of the women who have abortions in the USA already have children. Jones et al’s qualitative study of 38 women found that key reasons behind their decision to have an abortion were ‘the material responsibilities of motherhood, such as the care for their existing children, as well as the more abstract expectations of parenting, such as the desire to provide children with a good home.’ The authors further noted: ‘The women believed that children were entitled to a stable and loving family, financial security, and a high level of care and attention… The findings demonstrate reasons why women have abortions throughout their reproductive life spans and that their decisions to terminate pregnancies are often influenced by the desire to be a good parent.’

The expectation that we have of family planning, our sense of reproductive choice, and the seriousness with which we take the decision to have children, may form part of the reason why the abortion rate is going up. But these are not bad things, and certainly not developments that we would want to reverse at all. My view is that abortion is not the problem. The problem is unintended pregnancy, and abortion is the possible solution to unintended pregnancy. This raises the question: what strategies might be considered to reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy?
[B]
Contraceptive use

One obvious strategy is to increase contraceptive use among non-users. It is the case that approximately 40 per cent of BPAS clients say they didn’t use contraception at the time they conceived. However, we also have to acknowledge that contraception fails. People may fail to use it but it also fails; and it fails much more commonly than people tend to think.

Family planning doctors don’t like to talk about contraception failing, and prefer to concentrate on the problem of people failing to use it. But contraceptive failure is a problem that we need to face up to. Data produced by James Trussell and Lisa Wynn in the USA show the gaps that exist between the way contraception should be used, and the way it is typically used. Of the 3.1million unintended pregnancies in the USA in 2001, Trussell and Wynn found that 48 per cent result from contraceptive failure (3).

It is important to take on board the fact that contraception is fallible, because it very much affects how one thinks about abortion and future family planning strategies. When we at BPAS see women who have not used a method of contraception, they admit that they know where they went wrong, and often joke: ‘I’ll never let him near me again without making sure I’m properly protected.’ But if someone has used contraception and it has let them down, they really don’t know where to go, which makes it very difficult for them.

For people who are using contraception, those involved in family planning may be able to help reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy by encouraging the use of LARCs, implants and IUDs, which don’t require that they remember to use a barrier method, or take a pill every day. Emergency contraception (EC) is also a very positive development, because it can be so forgiving, allowing women to use the contraception after they have had sex.

However, I think that all of our best intentions are confounded by a number of things. People’s knowledge of, and access to, contraceptive services is one of the things that limits contraceptive use. But even here, it is important to understand that the impact of contraceptive services can be overestimated. A study published by Anna Glasier and colleagues in 2006 randomised women seeking repeat abortions between an ordinary family planning service and a service offering specialist contraceptive advice and enhanced provision: the idea being that you could see how the quality of a family planning service and advice influenced whether or not they needed a subsequent abortion. The study found no statistical difference between the two groups at all. In fact, a slightly larger number of women in the specialised family planning services needed a repeat abortion. (4)

There have been a large number of studies about the impact of sex education on abortion rates and pregnancy rates, and these frequently tend to show that they are not having the kind of impact that family planning specialists want. They mainly make us feel good that we’re educating people more thoroughly, but they do not seem to have much impact on the abortion rate.

Sex, risk and intimacy

One area that has been rather less well studied relates to people’s perceptions of risk. Women have lots of misconceptions and misunderstandings about their fertility, their fertile period, when it is safe for them to have sex and when it is not. They also have lots of misunderstandings about contraception, and about the chances of unwanted pregnancy. We need to understand that, at the end of the day, for lots of women, their motivations to use contraception may not be as high as we might think or hope, because contraception is about doing something to prevent something that might not happen anyway.

Further to this, there is an element in women’s risk-taking that is often completely forgotten by those involved in sexual health provision: which is that non-use of contraception may be hooked into something else. It may be hooked into a desire for intimacy, a desire for closeness: in other words, it may be hooked into something that is not entirely dysfunctional. We tend to think of non-contraceptive use as being dysfunctional, a thing that people shouldn’t do, whereas if we take a step back from the view of sex that is generally held by family planning doctors to imagine the woman’s viewpoint, we start to see things quite differently.

Family planning doctors, in general, see sex in terms of risk. Good sex for family planning doctors is safe, planned, under control, negotiated, responsible. For other people, however, good sex is more to do with opportunity: it’s about being edgy, exciting, spontaneous, passionate, lost in the moment, carried away, romantic. All of those things that people look for in their relationships mitigate against the planning, preparedness, the loss of control. For many people, relationships really are a balance of risks against a desire to take things for granted, to be spontaneous.

There is some literature coming out of the gay community that looks at this sexual risk-taking in relation to gay couples who are not of equivalent HIV status. This has found that non-condom use for committed gay couples can be seen as an act of trust, closeness, intimacy and togetherness. When we look at why people take risks with heterosexual sex, we may find that the situation is not going to be resolved by people vowing to use contraceptives better.

Those involved in sexual health provision tend to get caught up in a medical model of looking at things, which can blind us to some of the more vague and messy aspects of human relationships that we really don’t yet understand. We shouldn’t be defensive about this, and we should challenge a lot of the received wisdom. In particular, we need to think about the subjects that we deal with from the point of view of people who are not professionals working in a particular area.

The Clintons in the USA, both Bill and Hillary, have a great deal to answer for, in popularising the notion that abortion should be safe, legal and rare (5). There is a very easy way to make abortion rare, and that’s to ban it, or to take away services, or to stigmatise it so people don’t feel able to have recourse to it. Do we really want to go there, as a society? We have a choice to make: either we continue to see abortion as a problem, or we allow people their moments of intimacy, we allow them to enjoy sex, and we allow them to make use of abortion as a back-up to contraception."

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in conclusion (for lazy people who skim articles at best):

1. Rising rates of abortion are a good thing on a social level, not a "social problem."

2. More access to contraceptives doesn't 'solve' the "problem" of abortion and viewing contraceptive use with an aim to reducing abortion is wrong, anti-sex and doesn't work.

3. Abortion is an easy, not tragic or heartbreaking, choice for educated and liberated women.

[Unicorn]

2. More access to contraceptives doesn't 'solve' the "problem" of abortion and viewing contraceptive use with an aim to reducing abortion is wrong, anti-sex and doesn't work.
I don't understand this point. In a socialist society the availability and effectiveness of contraception will increase and therefore the number of abortions will decrease. Nearly all women prefer contraception to abortion as a birth control method. Abortion is the solution when contraception fails.

[TC]

Well...you would understand that point if you read the article...

[Unicorn]

Well...you would understand that point if you read the article...
I read it. My point is that in a developed future socialist society most sexually active women have ready access to effective post-coital contraceptives. Restricting the availability of contraceptions means that more women become pregnant against their will and abortions are necessary. In a socialist society it would be more rare that a woman is pregnant against her will and there are thus less abortions.

I agree that it is patriarchal to think that abortions should be rare. The whole issue does not have ethical importance. They can be rare or common as far as I am concerned.

[Vanguard1917]

Yeah, an excellent article; it was also published by spiked, where the author has written extensively on the abortion issue (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4935/).

[TC]

I read it. My point is that in a developed future socialist society most sexually active women have ready access to effective post-coital contraceptives. Restricting the availability of contraceptions means that more women become pregnant against their will and abortions are necessary. In a socialist society it would be more rare that a woman is pregnant against her will and there are thus less abortions.

As pointed out in the article, that logic, Unicorn, is flawed, as 1. people with real rather than clinical attitudes to sex will often have spontaneously without using birth control based on opportunity (since having an abortion isn't the worst thing in the world and chances are won wont get pregnant from a single sexual encounter anyways) 2. the best contraceptive access and education doesn't actually reduce the abortion rate in practice, statistically speaking (maybe the type of people who are likely to make use of it are also more likely to have sex frequently thereby increasing the probability that they'll get pregnant anyways or maybe their more healthy attitude towards abortion leads them to terminate more unwanted pregnancies than those who don't, its unclear):


People’s knowledge of, and access to, contraceptive services is one of the things that limits contraceptive use. But even here, it is important to understand that the impact of contraceptive services can be overestimated. A study published by Anna Glasier and colleagues in 2006 randomised women seeking repeat abortions between an ordinary family planning service and a service offering specialist contraceptive advice and enhanced provision: the idea being that you could see how the quality of a family planning service and advice influenced whether or not they needed a subsequent abortion. The study found no statistical difference between the two groups at all. In fact, a slightly larger number of women in the specialised family planning services needed a repeat abortion. (4)

There have been a large number of studies about the impact of sex education on abortion rates and pregnancy rates, and these frequently tend to show that they are not having the kind of impact that family planning specialists want. They mainly make us feel good that we’re educating people more thoroughly, but they do not seem to have much impact on the abortion rate.

As for the 'socialist society' claims, in practice in Cuba where they have excellent sex education and contraceptive availability they still have way more abortions than in advanced capitalist states. I think its important to point this out in order to make it clear that abortion rates are not a symptom of capitalism, the only social effect they're symptomatic of is the break down of patriarchy.

[Luís Henrique]

There is a very easy way to make abortion rare, and that’s to ban it, or to take away services, or to stigmatise it so people don’t feel able to have recourse to it.

Living in a country in which abortions are banned, I can say with absolute certainty that banning abortions don't make them rare.

Luís Henrique

[TC]

its so obviously true that any given population will have fewer abortions if they're banned then if they're legal just like more people drink alcohol in amsterdam than in mecca, even though a lot of people probably drink alcohol in mecca anyways.

The fact is that banning, restricting, and stigmatizing abortion results in at least some people giving birth against their will; even if its unable to prevent many from doing so.

[Luís Henrique]

its so obviously true that any given population will have fewer abortions if they're banned then if they're legal just like more people drink alcohol in amsterdam than in mecca, even though a lot of people probably drink alcohol in mecca anyways.

This is a gross trivialisation of the issue. It is obvious that having an abortion is more important than having a drink, and that the consequences of not having an abortion are much more complicated than the consequences of not having a drink.

I don't think there would be a significantly higher number of abortions in Brazil if they were legalised. Women get abortions when they need them, not when they are allowed to.

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

I don't think there would be a significantly higher number of abortions in Brazil if they were legalised.


So state bans, lack of abortion services, and the officially-sanctioned stigmatisation of abortion has no significant impact women's freedom to choose?

Please explain.

[Demogorgon]

its so obviously true that any given population will have fewer abortions if they're banned then if they're legal just like more people drink alcohol in amsterdam than in mecca, even though a lot of people probably drink alcohol in mecca anyways.

The fact is that banning, restricting, and stigmatizing abortion results in at least some people giving birth against their will; even if its unable to prevent many from doing so.
The country with the highest known rate of abortion was Albania under Hoxha and abortion was banned there. That was of course down to the heavy restriction of contraception. Many of the abortions were fatal for the women involved too.

The actual fact is that banning something will not necessarily reduce it at all. Even taking the alcohol example, many countries where it is supposedly banned is absolutely swimming in it. You can buy alcohol on just about every street corner in Tehran for instance and famously of course there was likely more alcohol drunk in the US during prohibition than either before or after it.

There is something about the topic of abortion that seems to make you disregard facts. More abortion is a good thing, full stop? Well the fact is that countries with open attitudes to sexuality and full access to contraception will usually have lower abortion rates than more prudish countries. Does that mean that open attitudes and contraception are bad things? Sometimes it seems that is exactly what you think.

And this obsessive talk about "giving birth against their will" is growing tiresome. Fear of childbirth is a pretty uncommon reason for getting an abortion. You get nowhere repeating that over and over.

[Luís Henrique]

My view is that abortion is not the problem. The problem is unintended pregnancy, and abortion is the possible solution to unintended pregnancy.

As we see, she also thinks that unwanted pregnancy is a problem.


However, we also have to acknowledge that contraception fails. People may fail to use it but it also fails; and it fails much more commonly than people tend to think.

Evidently; this is the reason why legal abortions are necessary. If contraceptives didn't fail, and people didn't fail to use them, abortions would necessary in much less occasions.

And evidently better contraceptives, better education on how to use them and when, and a raised awareness of the need to use them would result in less unwanted pregnancies, and proportionally in less abortions. It is of course the case that abortions should remain legal even if the need for them was extremely rare - but that is a different issue.

But to address the general issue - at no moment does this article by Ann Furendi states that "more, not fewer abortions are a good thing", or that "rising rates of abortion are a good thing on a social level, not a 'social problem.'"

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

As we see, she also thinks that unwanted pregnancy is a problem.


Of course it is. For the woman it's a practical problem, and abortion is one of the practical solutions - a back-up to other, more straightforward contraceptives.


If contraceptives didn't fail, and people didn't fail to use them, abortions would necessary in much less occasions.

But they do fail and, much of the time, women are careless in taking them 'properly' (even though they, at least in Britain, have pretty good access to them). This is not a 'problem'; taking risks is part of everyday human life.

Instead of giving women sermons about their private lives (e.g. 'education', 'family planning' lectures, etc.), which is what is favoured by people like Hilary Clinton, we should simply be calling on abortion's full legalisation and the expansion of free abortion services on demand, as well as opposing all attempts by the establishment to stigmatise abortion.


But to address the general issue - at no moment does this article by Ann Furendi states that "more, not fewer abortions are a good thing", or that "rising rates of abortion are a good thing on a social level, not a 'social problem.'"


The article is arguing against the idea that a rise in rates of abortion should be seen as a problem.

Indeed, that same article was published by spiked under the title: 'Why rising abortion rates are not a problem'. The subtitle: 'Let’s welcome the fact that women take motherhood so seriously that, with the aid of abortion, they put it off till they’re ready.' (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4935/)

[TC]

The country with the highest known rate of abortion was Albania under Hoxha and abortion was banned there. That was of course down to the heavy restriction of contraception. Many of the abortions were fatal for the women involved too.

Clearly untrue, here are some actual statistics:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html

while some countries where abortion is illegal but bans are poorly enforced have high abortion rates they aren't anywhere close to the highest where abortion is legal and free such as vietnam and cuba.


The actual fact is that banning something will not necessarily reduce it at all.

Clearly we're talking about bans where more than a token enforcment effort is made.


Even taking the alcohol example, many countries where it is supposedly banned is absolutely swimming in it. You can buy alcohol on just about every street corner in Tehran for instance and famously of course there was likely more alcohol drunk in the US during prohibition than either before or after it.

Thats just factually incorrect. There is more alcohol in the US post prohibition than during it, its far easier to get alcohol in an European or American city than Tehran despite the relative ease. There might be plenty of stoners in san fransisco but more in amsterdam.

I mean objectively to use an obvious example, almost everyone drinks alcohol underage, but almost everyones rate of alcohol consumption also goes up when they can drink it legally.


There is something about the topic of abortion that seems to make you disregard facts.
So far you're the one who has disregarded facts to suit your hidden social conservative agenda.


More abortion is a good thing, full stop?

No, what I said was higher rates of abortion indicate social progress.


Well the fact is that countries with open attitudes to sexuality and full access to contraception will usually have lower abortion rates than more prudish countries.
Again, empirically untrue. Are Cuba and Vietnam and Belarus and Thailand prudish places?


Does that mean that open attitudes and contraception are bad things? Sometimes it seems that is exactly what you think.

Is it really worth dignifying these types of garbage, baiting, obnoxious comments with responses?


And this obsessive talk about "giving birth against their will" is growing tiresome. Fear of childbirth is a pretty uncommon reason for getting an abortion. You get nowhere repeating that over and over.
You might like to think that, but logically speaking, the only reason why anyone in the west gets an abortion is to avoid more advanced stages of pregnancy and child birth since all infants are wanted by someone in the west. This is the sole reason why people opt for abortion over adoption.


As we see, she also thinks that unwanted pregnancy is a problem.

Yes...and she agrees with me that abortion is a solution to a problem, not a problem itself.

Similarly, antibiotics are a solution to the individual problem of bacterial infection but socialism wont eliminate the problem of bacterial infection except through antibiotics...

I don't get why this is so difficult for you two to grasp.

[Luís Henrique]

Clearly untrue, here are some actual statistics:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html

Yes, and from that very site:


Abortion rates are no lower overall in areas where abortion is generally restricted by law (and where many abortions are performed under unsafe conditions) than in areas where abortion is legally permitted.

Which is, of course, the kernel issue.

In fact, it also states:


Among the subregions of the world, Eastern Europe had the highest abortion rate (90 per 1,000) and Western Europe the lowest rate (11 per 1,000)Which is to mean, the lowest rates are in a region where abortion is legal, a reasonable public health system is in place, and contraceptives and information about contraceptives are easily available. The highest rates, in a region where abortion is legal, but the public health system has been destroyed, and contraceptives and information about them aren't as easily available.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The article is arguing against the idea that a rise in rates of abortion should be seen as a problem.

Indeed, that same article was published by spiked under the title: 'Why rising abortion rates are not a problem'. The subtitle: 'Let’s welcome the fact that women take motherhood so seriously that, with the aid of abortion, they put it off till they’re ready.' (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4935/)

Which is a far shot from "rising abortion rates are a good thing", don't you think so?

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

Which is a far shot from "rising abortion rates are a good thing", don't you think so?

Luís Henrique

Well, it's saying that there is something to celebrate about rising abortion rates in Britain: namely that it signals women practicing greater control over their reproduction.

[Demogorgon]

Clearly untrue, here are some actual statistics:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html

while some countries where abortion is illegal but bans are poorly enforced have high abortion rates they aren't anywhere close to the highest where abortion is legal and free such as vietnam and cuba.
At the very top of that article it shows the lowest abortion rates to be in Belgium and the Netherlands. both with very liberal policies. It also shows the number of illegal abortions performed is close to the number of legal abortions despite the fact that the majority of people live in countries where abortion is legal.

Thats just factually incorrect. There is more alcohol in the US post prohibition than during it, its far easier to get alcohol in an European or American city than Tehran despite the relative ease. There might be plenty of stoners in san fransisco but more in amsterdam. Well there are a lot more people in America now of course. But per capita alcohol use still hasn't gotten back to prohibition levels. As for comparing Tehran to American or European cities, there is a problem there because of cultural issue. Compare it to a major city in an Islamic country where alcohol is legal. Far more is drunk in Tehran than in Cairo or Karachi


I mean objectively to use an obvious example, almost everyone drinks alcohol underage, but almost everyones rate of alcohol consumption also goes up when they can drink it legally.I don't know about that Teenagers are not known for their low alcohol consumption.


So far you're the one who has disregarded facts to suit your hidden social conservative agenda.

A very well hidden one evidently, given you are the only person who seems to see it. I might also suggest that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones given your own Conservative attitudes


No, what I said was higher rates of abortion indicate social progress.
So Albania under Hoxha was experiencing much more social progress than Belgium today.


Again, empirically untrue. Are Cuba and Vietnam and Belarus and Thailand prudish places?
Cuba and Belarus certainly are (abortion is mostly illegal in belarus BTW). Thailand isn't, though there is a fairly high degree of disdain for contraception (as there is in Cuba come to that) accounting for high abortion rates. I don't really know enough about Vietnam, the society is not traditionally prudish, but I do not know enough about attitudes to contraception


You might like to think that, but logically speaking, the only reason why anyone in the west gets an abortion is to avoid more advanced stages of pregnancy and child birth since all infants are wanted by someone in the west. This is the sole reason why people opt for abortion over adoption.

You are confusing the reason that you might choose to have an abortion with the reasons other people have.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf

The highlights:

25.5% Want to postpone childbearing
21.3% Cannot afford a baby
14.1% Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy
12.2% Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy
10.8% Having a child will disrupt education or job
7.9% Want no (more) children
3.3% Risk to fetal health
2.8% Risk to maternal health
2.1% Other

Plainly women actually having abortions disagree with you.

[Luís Henrique]

Well, it's saying that there is something to celebrate about rising abortion rates in Britain: namely that it signals women practicing greater control over their reproduction.

Which would be valid for any contraceptive method as well.

But the article actually doesn't take the line suggested on that subtitle; it rather goes on to try explain why abortion rates are on the rise, and why the clinical approach to the issue gets it wrong.

If we want to know what those rising abortion rates mean, we would have to know two other factors: first, the number of unwanted pregnancies (are abortions on the rise because more women are deciding to terminate unwanted pregnancies, or because there are more unwanted pregnancies?) and second, the efficacy of contraceptives (if there are more unwanted pregancies, is this due to a lowering in contraceptives efficacy, or because people are having more sex?)

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

So state bans, lack of abortion services, and the officially-sanctioned stigmatisation of abortion has no significant impact women's freedom to choose?

Please explain.

Of course they have. They actually ban safe abortions, at least for the majority that cannot pay for them.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I mean objectively to use an obvious example, almost everyone drinks alcohol underage, but almost everyones rate of alcohol consumption also goes up when they can drink it legally.

Generally when people reach an age in which they can drink alcohol legally, they also start to earn the money to buy alcohol for themselves...

I don't see why you insist is this absurd analogy with alcohol consumption. Abortion is a fundamental matter of freedom of choice for women; alcohol is a stupid beverage no one actually needs.


Similarly, antibiotics are a solution to the individual problem of bacterial infection but socialism wont eliminate the problem of bacterial infection except through antibiotics...

I don't get why this is so difficult for you two to grasp.

You miss the very point of your own argument... if unwanted pregnancies are a disease, then of course they should first place be prevented, not "cured".

And of course we "grasp" that abortions absolutely need to be legal as long as there are unwanted pregnancies (which quite probably means, "for ever"). What is "ungraspable" is your insistence that abortion is a good thing, in and of itself (not even antibiotics are), and that it is not enough to uphold abortions on demand up to term, but it is necessary to uphold them in your terms and for the reasons you have determined are correct.

Luís Henrique

[TC]

I see Luis has once again reverted to his trollish tactic of replying to absurd straw man positions which bare no relations to my own while misattributing them to me. I wont reward his narcissism with direct refutations of each one of his ridiculous claims.

Luis, you wrote in a thread in the CC (which as this concerns theory/politics and not personal information can be reposted as per the vote that TAT initiated a while ago establishing this), first


Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society..

And then your position evolved to:


I would say that there is something inherently wrong with abortion, and that that has nothing to do with morals or moralism.

What is inherently wrong with abortion is the failure of other contraceptive methods.

In a communist society, contraceptives and sexual education will be more accessible to more women, women will have less reason to believe they are unable to raise a baby, and the end of private reproduction of the labour force will likely make any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society.
In fact it is not a social problem, it is a symptom of varied social problems: poverty, sexism, and, of course, of a fundamental contradiction of capitalism: the private reproduction of an increasingly social labour force.

Such a position is clearly ignorant and wrong and the article addresses it head on.

The title and subtitle of the article as presented in the spike reprint is:


Why rising abortion rates are not a problem:
Let’s welcome the fact that women take motherhood so seriously that, with the aid of abortion, they put it off till they’re ready.The authors explicit claim, as is mine, is that rising abortion rates are not problematic and indicative of social progress (note, as much as you may enjoy making an idiot of yourself, indicating social progress does not make something an inherently good thing, more in a population being a sign of a healthy population doesn't mean more in an individual is a good thing).

Your reactionary position is just the opposite; you assert that abortion is symptomatic of a regressive society, that abortion is if not morally wrong, problematic...and essentially that women who choose not to make incubators out of themselves are a product of "poverty, sexism and capitalism".

Try defending your idiotic, social reactionary position, instead of misconstruing mine.

[BobKKKindle$]

Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society..

It will never be possible to "eliminate" abortion because, even if everyone uses contraception when they have sex, contraception is not always effective, and so there will always be some women who wish to terminate pregnancy, and they should be given the means to do so, through the provision of abortion. Why do you think of abortion as a social problem? What is wrong with using abortion as a form of contraception instead of more conventional methods?

[apathy maybe]

I've read the article, and I think I understand it. Let's see if I can summarise it. Abortions are a good thing, because sometimes people don't want to worry about contraceptives, sometimes they don't work or whatever. Sex isn't science.

Abortion is a great back up plan.

Want to know what I think? Long term reversible contraceptives are a good idea, and while they still aren't 100% (there was a thing in Australia a couple of years back with a doctor getting sued), they work much more of the time then condoms (etc.)

So yeah, more abortions aren't a thing to be celebrated, something to celebrate is freedom, of which abortions are one possible consequence.

[Jazzratt]

Abortions are a method of avoiding unwanted pregnancy, a good aim for society is no unwanted pregnancies - how this is achieved is immaterial. If someone can't be arsed with contraceptives, fine they aren't being worse people than those who use defective contraceptives. Viewing abortion as a failsafe means you're taking the moral position that if one doesn't want to give birth to a child they don't want, then they should use contraceptives - even if they don't really want to and that's a stupid moral position.

[Devrim]

The Ferudi's basically built their political organisation around saying things that would upset the parents of the middle class students that they were trying to recruit.

Nobody ,apart from perhaps those students trying to shock their parents, thinks that the act of having an abortion is a good thing in the same way that having any form of operation ,in itself, is not considered to be a good thing even though the results may be considered beneficial.

The title added to this thread by TC is a good example of this approach, 'Why more, not fewer, abortions are a good thing'. They may be a reflection of more choice, which may be a good thing, but they are not a good thing in themselves. Ann Freudi doesn't go over the top in the same way as TC (maybe it is because they don't run a party that they are trying to attract middle class rebels to anymore). Her titles of 'Abortion: A solution to a problem', and 'Why rising abortion rates are not a problem' are much more reasonable.

Could it possibly be a good thing if abortions were rarer? I would say yes. If contraception were more freely available, easier to use, and more effective, I think abortions would be rarer, and I believe that would be a good thing.

Do I think that they could ever be eliminated altogether? I would say no. Even if everybody had a little button on their arm with no side effects, and which you had to turn on if you wanted a child, people would sometimes change their minds.

I suppose in TC's eyes that makes me a 'social conservative patriarchal idiot'.

Devrim

[Luís Henrique]

Luis, you wrote in a thread in the CC (which as this concerns theory/politics and not personal information can be reposted as per the vote that TAT initiated a while ago establishing this), first

Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society...

That's an interesting way to quote. Let's restablish the context:



Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society

Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society... and the correct way to handle it while it has not been eliminated by a better society is to make it the choice of the woman involved.

Where is the contradiction?

As it is quite easy to see, I was demonstrating that Green Apostle's position was not incompatible with a pro-abortion rights stand.


And then your position evolved to:

I would say that there is something inherently wrong with abortion, and that that has nothing to do with morals or moralism.

What is inherently wrong with abortion is the failure of other contraceptive methods.

In a communist society, contraceptives and sexual education will be more accessible to more women, women will have less reason to believe they are unable to raise a baby, and the end of private reproduction of the labour force will likely make any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society.
[...]
In fact it is not a social problem, it is a symptom of varied social problems: poverty, sexism, and, of course, of a fundamental contradiction of capitalism: the private reproduction of an increasingly social labour force.



Such a position is clearly ignorant and wrong and the article addresses it head on.

Evidently the article doesn't address it, and it is easy to prove it.

Remind I qualified my statement:


In a communist society


it is a symptom [snip] of a fundamental contradiction of capitalism: the private reproduction of an increasingly social labour force.

Ann Furendi does not address the issue of social revolution in her article. She's talking about a capitalist society as such, and trying to explain why certain policies do not work, in the frame of such society, without making any references to a different society.

(She fails to point the part that both capitalism in general, as a system that hinders universal access to information, and "New Labour" economic policies, which concentrate income, play in the failure of British contraceptive policies - but this is another issue. I'm not arguing the problems of the article, I'm stating that it does not say what you have read into it.)


Your reactionary position is just the opposite; you assert that abortion is symptomatic of a regressive society, that abortion is if not morally wrong, problematic...and essentially that women who choose not to make incubators out of themselves are a product of "poverty, sexism and capitalism".

We see you are really good in summarising...:glare:

Evidently "women who choose not to make incubators of themselves" are not a product of poverty, sexism, and capitalism.

First, they are not "women who choose not to make incubators of themselves": they are women who don't want children, either in general or at the moment they choose to have an abortion. As Ann Furendi herself points out, most women who have abortions already have children. (and sou your phrase "women who choose not to make incubators of themselves" stands out in its full ridicule: those women aren't making hollow statements about their bodies; they are not burning bras, they are solving a practical problem in their lives; they are doing for themselves, not for Comrade TragicClown, Lighthouse of the Occupied Wombs).

Second, it is quite obvious that what happens to them is that they have unwanted pregnancies, and that, given the choice, they would prefer that such pregnancy hadn't happen at all. Evidently, each one of them, in a certain moment, has said to herself, "shit, this wasn't supposed to happen... now I must deal with this, and I must have an abortion". I doubt a single one of them has reansoned "good, I was indeed wishing to have an abortion, this comes really handy".

Third, and even more evident, those women are not a product of poverty, sexism, or capitalism; but the situation in which they find themselves, quite often, is: social sexism that makes information on contraceptives more difficult to obtain, sexism of partners who don't care about contraception themselves, poverty that makes buying a contraceptive set also buying a milk litre less, capitalism that tells them, "your baby, your private business".

Luís Henrique

[Unicorn]

In the Soviet Union abortions were the primary birth control method after they were legalized. The availability of contraception was severely restrict which made abortions common.

[apathy maybe]

And I hope you think that this was a problem which shouldn't never have occurred...

[Vanguard1917]

Rising abortion rates aren't inherently a good thing. It would be wrong to suggest that they are. In fact, birth control itself is not inherently a good thing either. Indeed, nowadays, some of the most enthusiastic supporters of abortion and birth control in general are some of the most despicable reactionaries in our society. I'm of course talking about the neo-Malthusians and environmentalists who support birth control as a means of reducing the human population.

However, in Britain today, rising abortion rates do not represent a problem. Instead, they represent a greater willingness by women to exercise greater control over their reproduction. That's why rising abortion rates, in these circumstances, represent something positive.

[TC]

In the Soviet Union abortions were the primary birth control method after they were legalized. The availability of contraception was severely restrict which made abortions common.

Of course I agree, they are in this context though just as they also were in the context of the Soviet Union after the dismantling of the Stalin administration's socially repressive policies. The point of the title is 'more' not 'fewer', relative terms not absolute ones as the conservatives have willfully represented.


And I hope you think that this was a problem which shouldn't never have occurred...

Why do you think that? Before hormonal based birth control (which is really a relatively recent technology), there was really no reasonably effective form of birth control apart from abortion...its been the primary form of birth control up until relatively recently.

You think that soviet women should have just gone without bodily autonomy until other forms of effective birth control were invented and manufactured? How do you imagine it 'shouldn't[sic] never have occurred', exactly, do you think that birth control pills should have been invented say, before agriculture, despite the impossibility of this, or what?

What are you getting at here exactly?

Why is it horrifying to use abortion as a primary form of birth control when its the only effective one possible? (keep in mind that lots of women can't use hormonal birth control for medical reasons)

[Luís Henrique]

Instead, they represent a greater willingness by women to exercise greater control over their reproduction. That's why rising abortion rates, in these circumstances, represent something positive.

Supposing that they actually represent that, which is Ann Fureni's opinion, but has not been proved in the very least.

They could also represent a crisis in British public health system, or increased poverty among British workers.

Luís Henrique

[apathy maybe]

i'm pretty sure that IUDs were the primary birth control method (although the embryos-are-people-too crowed consider them abortion methods)



Why do you think that? Before hormonal based birth control (which is really a relatively recent technology), there was really no reasonably effective form of birth control apart from abortion...its been the primary form of birth control up until relatively recently.

You think that soviet women should have just gone without bodily autonomy until other forms of effective birth control were invented and manufactured? How do you imagine it 'shouldn't[sic] never have occurred', exactly, do you think that birth control pills should have been invented say, before agriculture, despite the impossibility of this, or what?

What are you getting at here exactly?

Why is it horrifying to use abortion as a primary form of birth control when its the only effective one possible? (keep in mind that lots of women can't use hormonal birth control for medical reasons)
Condoms. Diaphragms. Spermicide. Heck, even half a lemon can be a good contraceptive if used correctly.

The problem in the USSR was that there were other options available. Other options that are cheaper, less hassle, less stressful etc.

I don't think that women should have to have an abortion if there are other options to prevent pregnancy, and if there were not in the USSR, then that was a problem.

[Unicorn]

I don't think that women should have to have an abortion if there are other options to prevent pregnancy, and if there were not in the USSR, then that was a problem.
In the Soviet Union condoms were manufactured but other contraceptives were very scarce. If people wanted condoms they had to ask the pharmaceutist for "Rubber Product No. 2". (Rubber product no. 1 was a gasmask)

[TC]

Condoms.
High failure rate



Diaphragms.
really high failure rate


Spermicide.
again, relatively recent technology.


Heck, even half a lemon can be a good contraceptive if used correctly.
uh, i don't think so.


The problem in the USSR was that there were other options available. Other options that are cheaper, less hassle, less stressful etc. Again, how was this a problem in the USSR when it was the case everywhere, the only difference was that abortion was legal and free in the USSR and illegal in the West. It was the West that had the problem (relative to the time) not the USSR.

Anyways, anything that requires doing anything ahead of time is going to be more hassle for some people in some circumstances.


I don't think that women should have to have an abortion if there are other options to prevent pregnancy, and if there were not in the USSR, then that was a problem.

Because they lacked time machines or because barrier methods should magically work better than they do in real life?

[Vanguard1917]

They could also represent a crisis in British public health system, or increased poverty among British workers.

Luís Henrique

I agree: they could; it's possible. Just as a rising abortion rate could represent possitive social developments (better access to abortion facilities, decline in the social stigmatisation of abortion, greater female independence, women playing a more active role in society, and so on) - by the same token, a rising abortion rate could very well represent negative developments in society: rising poverty, lack of access to contraceptives, the influence of environmentalist and neo-Malthusian misanthropic ideas , etc.

This only goes to show that abortion rates have to be understood within their social context - that there's nothing inherently good or bad about abortion itself.

[Luís Henrique]

This only goes to show that abortion rates have to be understood within their social context - that there's nothing inherently good or bad about abortion itself.

Listen, if there is a situation in which women are not having abortions because they don't know how to obtain them, or because their lives are so controlled by their patriarchal families that they have no such option, or because themselves believe they are going to hell if they do it... then a rising rate of abortion will be a subproduct of a transformation in such conditions (and will probably go unnoticed, given such transformations being much more spectacular). And such transformations are, in and of themselves, a good thing.

I doubt abortion rates would increase in Brazil (much less in Great Britain) for reasons like that.

Luís Henrique

[Jazzratt]

[Refering to condoms] High failure rate

So you take your information on birth control from the pope and the abstinence-only crowd?

Hell, your position is hilarious - abortion only sex education: because time consuming surgical procedures are so much more effecient at preventing unwanted pregnancies than simply using contraceptives.

[TC]

So you take your information on birth control from the pope and the abstinence-only crowd?

Hell, your position is hilarious - abortion only sex education: because time consuming surgical procedures are so much more effecient at preventing unwanted pregnancies than simply using contraceptives.

Uh, I take my birth control information on condoms from the fact that they don't always stay in the same position when you're having sex, they can potentially come off when having sex, it doesn't take a genius to infer from those observations that its not a fail proof system. It seems implicit from the fact that this isn't *obvious* to you that although you don't trust the pope you have taken his advice and abstained from sex :laugh:.

The idea that if you use over the counter contraceptives you'll never get pregnant so only "irresponsible" people have abortions is part of anti-abortion propaganda. The risk of getting pregnant from one sexual encounter while only using a condom might be too low for consideration, but when you consider the amount of times sexually active people expose themselves to that small risk, it accumulates to a significant one.

Planned parenthood, not exactly known as an 'abstinence only sex education' program or an institution popular with the Vatican, say that in typical use 14 out of 100 women will get pregnant if they use condoms for a year
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/greater-iowa/birth-control-methods.htm#mcondom

Obviously, if you're sexually active for several years, that 14% failure rate constitutes a significant chance of getting pregnant despite using condoms (since if its 14 in an average group of 100 the first year, and 14 in a 100 the next year, it will mostly be a different 14 on average)

The idea that barrier contraceptive devices are dependable over time is what makes people 1. think that restricting abortion is no big deal since they can just use condoms, 2. think unintended pregnancy is something that they and their partners and responsible friends don't have to worry about because they're responsible 3. those who have abortions were irresponsible 4. that abortion isn't a major, practical feature of birth control when 30-40% of women in most countries have at least one.

[Luís Henrique]

The idea that if you use over the counter contraceptives you'll never get pregnant so only "irresponsible" people have abortions is part of anti-abortion propaganda.

It is, and it is obviously important to aknowledge that contraceptives do fail. However, the fallibility of contraceptives is immaterial to the issue of abortion. Sometimes people chang their minds; the baby who they were expecting is vitcim of some genetic disease, or mom or dad lose their jobs and what should be an achievement turns out to be a problem.

But the conservative line you are pointing to is quite easy to dispell: "what? so you believe that irresponsible people should have children? That if they can't be trusted to take their pills the right way they should be entrusted with raising a child?!"

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

In a communist society, contraceptives and sexual education will be more accessible to more women, women will have less reason to believe they are unable to raise a baby, and the end of private reproduction of the labour force will likely make any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society.

Why can't abortions be that more accessible contraceptive?

[Luís Henrique]

Why can't abortions be that more accessible contraceptive?

Oh good grief.

Do you oppose other contraceptives, so to make abortions the only option?

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

No, but current contraceptive methods have some chance of failure. I think abortions are great, as they are failproof for when the couple neglects to use a "conventional" contraceptive methods, when they decide posteriorly that they don't want a baby, or when other methods fail. In the end, I don't think the reasons for abortion need to be brought to question, as it's purely the woman's choice. Fetuses and embryos have no rights at all, so abort away.

[Demogorgon]

Why can't abortions be that more accessible contraceptive?
Abortion is by definition not contraception. Contraception is, as the name suggests a means of stopping conception from happening. Abortion is a means of terminating a pregnancy once it is under way. Given also that abortion is resource intensive and also very unpleasant, especially in later stages of pregnancy, it is obviously preferable that unwanted pregnancies don't take place.

The best contraceptives have close to a 99% success rate, so obviously people who do not wish to achieve pregnancy should use them (to say nothing of the fact that condoms are good for stopping the spread of STDs). Obviously they fail sometimes and in such cases abortion is needed. But abortion is the last line of defence, not the first (and incidentally abortion is not full proof either. Chemical abortion in particular can quite easily fail).

Some people here seem to be taking the position that contraceptives are in some way a bad thing because they reduce abortion. This is just insane to me, not only because it sees abortion as somehow being a good thing in of itself rather than a necessary procedure to be used when required, but it also encourages the spread of STDs. Certain people here have some growing up to do.

[Luís Henrique]

No, but current contraceptive methods have some chance of failure. I think abortions are great, as they are failproof for when the couple neglects to use a "conventional" contraceptive methods, when they decide posteriorly that they don't want a baby, or when other methods fail. In the end, I don't think the reasons for abortion need to be brought to question, as it's purely the woman's choice. Fetuses and embryos have no rights at all, so abort away.

So read again what I wrote:


In a communist society, contraceptives and sexual education will be more accessible to more women, women will have less reason to believe they are unable to raise a baby, and the end of private reproduction of the labour force will likely make any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society.Frankly. There is a joke here in Brazil, that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. It seems some people are trying to make it a sacrament, even if men are still unable to get pregnant.

I fail to see how you and others construe my position as in any way opposed to legal, safe and free abortion on demand.

Luís Henrique

[TC]

However, the fallibility of contraceptives is immaterial to the issue of abortion. Sometimes people chang their minds; the baby who they were expecting is vitcim of some genetic disease, or mom or dad lose their jobs and what should be an achievement turns out to be a problem.


Its immaterial to the right to abortions but its not immaterial to the number of abortions which is the topic here.



But the conservative line you are pointing to is quite easy to dispell: "what? so you believe that irresponsible people should have children? That if they can't be trusted to take their pills the right way they should be entrusted with raising a child?!"


Sure, but the conservatives don't actually want unwed irresponsible women to raise children, that defeats part of the point of having a child from the patriarchal conservative perspective (it gives wifey something to do to justify keep her tied to the kitchen so she can make life real nice for the bread winner patriarch).

Instead they want those 'irresponsible' women to through pregnancy and labor to put their children up for adoption so a good nuclear family can take them in, thereby reproducing the work force and keeping someone at home; they want them as breeders not caretakers. Thats why they treat single mothers like shit while worshiping stay at home moms.


And Wow I'm suprised I missed such a reactionary patriarchal comment by Luis:


women will have less reason to believe they are unable to raise a baby, and the end of private reproduction of the labour force will likely make any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society.I'm sorry but any idiot can raise a baby, its menial shit work the type that women have been forced to do since the beginning of class society.

What changes with social progress is that women have reason to believe they can do better for themselves then raising a baby.

Your line that "any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society" is patriarchal pro-natalist bullshit thats dressed up to sound leftist (like a lot of the unexamined male chauvinism on the left). Hopefully there wont be any unwanted babies because everyone who gets pregnant who doesn't want a child within the next nine month will have an abortion without a second a thought because the cult of fetus that the conservatives have constructed in order to manipulate, guilt, and coerce women into sacrificing their time energy and bodies to have infants they don't want would have been eliminated with the patriarchy that motivates it.

As for wanted babies being 'the subject of collective care of the whole of society' thats also ridiculous; the division of labour will persist after socialism and communism, people who choose to reproduce because they enjoy taking care of babies and children will do so as they do now (in addition to reproducing for a host of other less fortunate reasons) and the community will (as the state does in Cuba for instance) ensure that paid people who enjoy looking after children will be able to care for them while they're parents do other things (with a higher ratio of children to adults than in nuclear family based systems)...but that doesn't mean that its the whole of society 'collectively'.

Put it this way if Communism means I have to participate inoo 'collective' childcare then its not my revolution :-p.


Oh good grief.

Do you oppose other contraceptives, so to make abortions the only option?

Come on now don't be a hysterical closet catholic, nothing he said remotely suggested that.


Abortion is by definition not contraception. Contraception is, as the name suggests a means of stopping conception from happening.

Abortion is by definition birth control and by that definition IUD's are also not contraceptives, and birth control pills, shots, implants and emergency contraceptives are all sometimes abortifacients.

The fact is that the only people who care about whether something is preventing an embryo from developing or preventing it from being conceived are male chauvinists (and the women who have adopted their ideology) who want to make sure their precious seed isn't destroyed.


Abortion is a means of terminating a pregnancy once it is under way. Given also that abortion is resource intensive and also very unpleasant, especially in later stages of pregnancy, it is obviously preferable that unwanted pregnancies don't take place.

Very late term abortion is resource intensive but abortions done early are not at all.

"menstrual extraction" abortions can be performed without medical training or drugs with far less resources than are spent on manufacturing hormonal contraceptives or even barrier contraceptives. Some people use it as a primary form of birth control without even confirming whether or not they're pregnant.



The best contraceptives have close to a 99% success rate, so obviously people who do not wish to achieve pregnancy should use them

The only contraceptives that have typical use success rates like that are invasive and expensive...they also involve system wide hormonal changes that can be dangerous for some women (i.e. smokers) and cause lots of side effects depending on brand and individual, which lots of women don't tolerate well.

How about its obvious that people should be able to make fully informed choices about what they want to do with their body based on their personal preferences for whatever reason, not someone elses morality?


But abortion is the last line of defence, not the first (and incidentally abortion is not full proof either. Chemical abortion in particular can quite easily fail).

thats really not true despite what you might want to think, the only time when abortion isn't 'fool proof' is with ectopic pregnancies which don't lead to live births anyways.



Some people here seem to be taking the position that contraceptives are in some way a bad thing because they reduce abortion.

Uh, no, Luis is trying to defend his and your conservatism (and, when I say that, frankly you're worse since Luis has recently improved politically, his comment quoted by Dr.Rosenpenis not withstanding) by slandering Dr. Rosenpenis with that position. No one thinks that, contraceptives are clearly a good thing.

Whats bad is pushing contraceptives from a moralist perspective out of the notion that they 'prevent abortion' rather than prevent pregnancy and unwanted childbirth, as a back door way of condemning and stigmatizing abortion (rather than recognizing abortion as just another form of birth control). Its also as shown in the study cited just not true that they reduce abortion; people who are more prone to use contraceptives are also more sexually active so they also have more exposers to risk of pregnancy (although clearly less so than if they behaved the same way but didn't use contraceptives) and better educated women are probably more likely to abort unwanted pregnancies so it balances out; contraceptives therefore reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies per sex act but possibly don't significantly reduce the number of abortions per capita (as suggested in the original article).

[Demogorgon]

Abortion is by definition birth control and by that definition IUD's are also not contraceptives, and birth control pills, shots, implants and emergency contraceptives are all sometimes abortifacients.

The fact is that the only people who care about whether something is preventing an embryo from developing or preventing it from being conceived are male chauvinists (and the women who have adopted their ideology) who want to make sure their precious seed isn't destroyed.
Technically certain forms of contraception could be termed abortion and some Conservative groups indeed do so, however that is by the by. Abortion and contraception are generally accepted as two different things.


Very late term abortion is resource intensive but abortions done early are not at all.

"menstrual extraction" abortions can be performed without medical training or drugs with far less resources than are spent on manufacturing hormonal contraceptives or even barrier contraceptives. Some people use it as a primary form of birth control without even confirming whether or not they're pregnant.
Such abortions still take up more time-and are more intrusive-than the manufacture and use of condoms. Not to say that such abortion should not be used, but it certainly does not make for an ideal primary method


The only contraceptives that have typical use success rates like that are invasive and expensive...they also involve system wide hormonal changes that can be dangerous for some women (i.e. smokers) and cause lots of side effects depending on brand and individual, which lots of women don't tolerate well.

How about its obvious that people should be able to make fully informed choices about what they want to do with their body based on their personal preferences for whatever reason, not someone elses morality?
Plainly women who do not tolerate such contraception should not use it, but that is besides the point. Even a fairly low quality condom will work none times out of ten.

And really, with exception of people who wish to have children, everyone should really be using protection anyway because of all the STDs doing the rounds. Plainly some won't, and that is there perogative, just as we have every right to smoke, drink too much, eat unhealthily and so on, but it is not a good idea.

thats really not true despite what you might want to think, the only time when abortion isn't 'fool proof' is with ectopic pregnancies which don't lead to live births anyways.
Again, you really should not be so sure. Surgical methods of abortion should not go wrong, but as I say chemical abortion can quite easily go wrong. The proof of that is easily come by. Many of the chemicals used in abortion are also used for other unrelated medical reasons and for obvious reasons pregnant women are heavily advised not to use them. However those that do don't always miscarry as a result. Even when the chemicals are used for abortion and taken in greater amounts they still don't always work.


Uh, no, Luis is trying to defend his and your conservatism (and, when I say that, frankly you're worse since Luis has recently improved politically, his comment quoted by Dr.Rosenpenis not withstanding) by slandering Dr. Rosenpenis with that position. No one thinks that, contraceptives are clearly a good thing.

Whats bad is pushing contraceptives from a moralist perspective out of the notion that they 'prevent abortion' rather than prevent pregnancy and unwanted childbirth, as a back door way of condemning and stigmatizing abortion (rather than recognizing abortion as just another form of birth control). Its also as shown in the study cited just not true that they reduce abortion; people who are more prone to use contraceptives are also more sexually active so they also have more exposers to risk of pregnancy (although clearly less so than if they behaved the same way but didn't use contraceptives) and better educated women are probably more likely to abort unwanted pregnancies so it balances out; contraceptives therefore reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies per sex act but possibly don't significantly reduce the number of abortions per capita (as suggested in the original article).
Of course contraception reduces abortion. Someone who uses abortion as their sole method of birth control will quite likely be having at least one abortion a year if they are having sex regularly. Most people are at nothing like that level.

And of course there is Hoxha's Albania where both contraception and abortion were illegal (the difference being though that one could easily access illegal abortion but illegal contraception was hard to come by). Around fifty percent of pregnancies ended in abortion. Now with contraception legal abortion rates are nothing like that.

Your trouble is as I have pointed out many times that you have made such a fetish of abortion that you want to celebrate it as an intrinsically good thing rather than a necessary medical procedure and come up with bizarre arguments as a result. Getting your leg plastered when you break it is also necessary, does that make it good?

[Luís Henrique]

Sure, but the conservatives don't actually want unwed irresponsible women to raise children, that defeats part of the point of having a child from the patriarchal conservative perspective (it gives wifey something to do to justify keep her tied to the kitchen so she can make life real nice for the bread winner patriarch).

Instead they want those 'irresponsible' women to through pregnancy and labor to put their children up for adoption so a good nuclear family can take them in, thereby reproducing the work force and keeping someone at home; they want them as breeders not caretakers. Thats why they treat single mothers like shit while worshiping stay at home moms.

Ho-hum. That may be what they say; obviously they are directly interested in the social inequality caused by unwed pregnancies, especially if combined with a strong prejudice against bastards, which they also, of course, favour very much.


Your line that "any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society" is patriarchal pro-natalist bullshit thats dressed up to sound leftist (like a lot of the unexamined male chauvinism on the left).What's the problem with you? Evidently in a capitalist society, raising children is a private affair; if you don't take care of them yourself, nobody is going to do it. In a communist society, a woman can be sure that if she decides to give birth to a baby, but does not want to raise it, the child will be cared by others, with no difference regarding the care of any other children.


Put it this way if Communism means I have to participate inoo 'collective' childcare then its not my revolution :-p. Of course it is not "your" revolution.

Saying that children will be taken care collectively does not mean that everybody must take part on such care - not at least on a 24/7 basis.


Uh, no, Luis is trying to defend his and your conservatism (and, when I say that, frankly you're worse since Luis has recently improved politicallyWhat have I done so wrong, that gives you the impression that I have "improved politically"? Have I started defending the sexual abuse of children, the economic exploitation of children in sweatshops, or the right of paranoids to believe in their delusions?


Whats bad is pushing contraceptives from a moralist perspective out of the notion that they 'prevent abortion' rather than prevent pregnancy and unwanted childbirthContraceptives are not intended to prevent abortions, they are intended to prevent pregnancies. Obviously, as you cannot have abortions without pregnancies, if contraceptives are used and work, fewer abortions will be necessary.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I'm sorry but any idiot can raise a baby, its menial shit work the type that women have been forced to do since the beginning of class society.

You really haven't the faintest idea of how much it costs to raise a child, do you? Have you ever minded the price of pampers, toys, schools, food, medical care, medicines, etc? And what about the sheer amount of work it takes? :cursing:

After all, if it is so easy to raise children, why would women try and avoid it?

Good grief, and you think you are a feminist... :crying:

Luís Henrique

[chimx]

Increased abortions increases the chances of infections and sterility in a population. Abortion should be used primarily as a secondary form of contraception when the primary form of contraception (e.g.: condoms, pills, etc) fail. The consequences of increasing abortion rates is an increased sterility rate. That's a bad thing.


You really haven't the faintest idea of how much it costs to raise a child, do you? Have you ever minded the price of pampers, toys, schools, food, medical care, medicines, etc? And what about the sheer amount of work it takes?

TC has always been an outspoken critic of infants. She hates babies, and some of us (well, at least me) suspect her advocacy of abortion rights has more to do with her hatred of infants than women's rights.

[Demogorgon]

TC has always been an outspoken critic of infants. She hates babies, and some of us (well, at least me) suspect her advocacy of abortion rights has more to do with her hatred of infants than women's rights.
I confess that that has occurred to me too. Her comments on children reflect extreme dislike. Also her belief that parents should not receive any extra support from society is rather strange from someone calling herself a Communist.

[TC]

Evidently in a capitalist society, raising children is a private affair; if you don't take care of them yourself, nobody is going to do it. In a communist society, a woman can be sure that if she decides to give birth to a baby, but does not want to raise it, the child will be cared by others, with no difference regarding the care of any other children.


Thats just not true, at least not in the industrial capitalist west: there are far more people who want to adopt babies then babies up for adoption.

If you don't want to take care of them there are people literally waiting in a line to do it!

People should give birth if they *want* to take care of a baby and later the child it will grow into, if it something they want to do for themselves; no one should be expected to lend out and sacrifice their body for purposes alien to themselves. Thats the point Luis not that there aren't people to take care of unwanted infants, I don't get why you don't see that?

So whats wrong with you?



I'm sorry but any idiot can raise a baby, its menial shit work the type that women have been forced to do since the beginning of class societyYou really haven't the faintest idea of how much it costs to raise a child, do you? Have you ever minded the price of pampers, toys, schools, food, medical care, medicines, etc? And what about the sheer amount of work it takes? :cursing:

After all, if it is so easy to raise children, why would women try and avoid it?

Do you ever like, bother to *read* what I write when you reply or do you just reply to what you wish I had wrote.

I didn't say it didn't require a lot of work or that it wasn't a hardship, I said it was menial shit work that anyone could do, that women have been traditionally forced to do. The fact that anyone could do it doesn't mean that anyone would want to do it; anyone could shovel garbage all day, that doesn't mean that shoveling garbage all day wouldn't require a lot of work.

Being something that any idiot can do isn't the same as being easy, this is precisely the sort of assumption someone like you would make who is totally ignorant of the feminist critique of gender relations in the family. Domestic labor including care of young children and infants is degrading, stupifying, repetitive, thats why the people who have historically had power (men) have made the people who haven't had power (women) do it, while they pursued more creative, rewarding activities that engaged them on a level where their individuality is more respected (i.e. most jobs relatively speaking).


Increased abortions increases the chances of infections and sterility in a population. Abortion should be used primarily as a secondary form of contraception when the primary form of contraception (e.g.: condoms, pills, etc) fail. The consequences of increasing abortion rates is an increased sterility rate. That's a bad thing.

Thats just again not true and I refuted that claim in a thread like this a long time ago; the risk of infertility from abortion is extremely low.


TC has always been an outspoken critic of infants. She hates babies, and some of us (well, at least me) suspect her advocacy of abortion rights has more to do with her hatred of infants than women's rights.

Part of the patriarchal ideology that protects oppressive gender relations is pro-natalism. The idea that anyone who doesn't think infants are sacred items that any women would be blessed with should she be so lucky (regardless of, you know, her feelings as an individual, since we know that all women have to luve babies as little gifts from god) hates babies, that its all about the babies and not about the people who physically have them, just shows how narrow and male chauvinist your perspective is on this topic.

How is it that you don't recognize the two as interrelated? Being able to avoid involuntary reproduction and childcare is a womens right, there is no distinction.


Your idea that it has 'more to do with my hatred of infants than women's rights' would be like saying that a lesbian arguing for laws against rape has 'more to do with their hatred of sex with men than human rights.' Being able to refuse the former is entailed by the later.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I fail to see how you and others construe my position as in any way opposed to legal, safe and free abortion on demand.
Luís Henrique

Because you said that abortion is a problem in itself and symptomatic of certain problems that will be solved by the establishment of a communist society. It's definitely not a problem. Many abortions may be symptomatic of other problems, but not all. You're treating the condition of a woman not wanting to give birth as an unfortunate consequence of poverty or a lack of societal support in the raising of children, which, in my opinion, is bullshit. To begin with, it's not an unfortunate consequence. It's actually a fortunate consequence, seeing as she won't give a birth against he will. Additionally, sometimes a woman doesn't want to give birth. Regardless of society's support and economic conditions, I sure as hell wouldn't want to pass a baby through my vag. If I had one, that is. Okay, that last bit was unnecessary. But I think it kind of illustrates my point that a slew of reasons for not wanting to maintain a pregnancy can be drawn up.

[Jazzratt]

The idea that if you use over the counter contraceptives you'll never get pregnant so only "irresponsible" people have abortions is part of anti-abortion propaganda.

Right so contraceptives were invented by the pro life crowd in order to shame people into giving birth? You're delusional. Look, it is simply easier to use a prophylactic or get a chemical abortion (the pill) than to go through surgery, it's insane to go through that inconvenience if one can avoid it. There isn't anything about "irresponsibility", simply avoiding inconvenience.


The risk of getting pregnant from one sexual encounter while only using a condom might be too low for consideration, but when you consider the amount of times sexually active people expose themselves to that small risk, it accumulates to a significant one.

Gambler's Fallacy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy)

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Gambler's Fallacy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy)

We're not talking about one woman, but billions of women.

[Jazzratt]

We're not talking about one woman, but billions of women.

That's not how I read it, it seemed very much to be talking about the exploits of a single sexually active woman.

[chimx]

Your idea that it has 'more to do with my hatred of infants than women's rights' would be like saying that a lesbian arguing for laws against rape has 'more to do with their hatred of sex with men than human rights.'

I'm not speaking in broad terms about abortion advocates. I simply mean your zealotry seems more a byproduct of your personal distaste with babies. At times I've noticed you almost are disgusted with women that want to have children.


Thats just again not true and I refuted that claim in a thread like this a long time ago; the risk of infertility from abortion is extremely low.

It depends on the procedure. 1% infection rates are common in first world countries, which is a significant drop from before. Older procedures have higher rates of infection and sterility.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The risk of infertility could be 50% and it wouldn't change a thing. Many surgeries have a much higher than 1% risk of death and are optional. The patients opt for the procedure knowing what the risks are. That hasn't ever stopped any surgical operation from being practiced.

[Luís Henrique]

Because you said that abortion is a problem in itself and symptomatic of certain problems that will be solved by the establishment of a communist society.

And so, if I say that money in itself is a problem that will be solved by the establishment of a communist society it means that I must be against wage raises? Please.

And notice: I have never said that the establishment of a communist society would solve those problems, but that it would probably make those problems less important.

And by no means have I ever said that solving such problems is even a valid reason for us to seek for a communist society.


It's definitely not a problem. Many abortions may be symptomatic of other problems, but not all. You're treating the condition of a woman not wanting to give birth as an unfortunate consequence of poverty or a lack of societal support in the raising of children, which, in my opinion, is bullshit.

Yes? So you certainly have some data that show that women do not decide to abort because they are poor, or unemployed, or unmarried, etc?


To begin with, it's not an unfortunate consequence. It's actually a fortunate consequence, seeing as she won't give a birth against he will.

So an unwanted pregnancy is a fortunate thing because she's going to have an abortion? How that? And how can poverty or lack of societal support have fortunate consequences? Are you now saying that poverty is a good thing because it leads to abortions?


Additionally, sometimes a woman doesn't want to give birth.

Yes, of course. Who ever denied that?


Regardless of society's support and economic conditions, I sure as hell wouldn't want to pass a baby through my vag. If I had one, that is.

You don't know, because you can't do it, so its a counterfactual.


Okay, that last bit was unnecessary. But I think it kind of illustrates my point that a slew of reasons for not wanting to maintain a pregnancy can be drawn up.

Who ever denied that? On the contrary, it is you and TragicClown who deny that there can be other reasons for a woman to have an abortion, other than "refusing to be an incubator".

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Thats just not true, at least not in the industrial capitalist west: there are far more people who want to adopt babies then babies up for adoption.

Oh, well. Brazil is certainly an industrial country (15% of the people live in rural areas, 85% in cities), it is certainly a capitalist country (even in agriculture, people work for a wage, and buy their food in the market), and it is quite certainly to the West of the United Kingdom. Yet there are certainly much more babies up for adoption here than people who want to adopt them. Especially, there are many, many, more black and/or disabled children up for adoption than people willing to adopt black, disabled babies.

Perhaps the reality is different in the United Kingdom? Why then are there no organisations who try to convince pregnant women to put their offspring up for adoptions instead of aborting?


Do you ever like, bother to *read* what I write when you reply or do you just reply to what you wish I had wrote.

I didn't say it didn't require a lot of work or that it wasn't a hardship, I said it was menial shit work that anyone could do, that women have been traditionally forced to do. The fact that anyone could do it doesn't mean that anyone would want to do it; anyone could shovel garbage all day, that doesn't mean that shoveling garbage all day wouldn't require a lot of work.


Yeah, and you said that in reply to me saying that women often feel unable to raise a child. Don't you realise that they may feel unable because they have not the money or the time required?

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

And so, if I say that money in itself is a problem that will be solved by the establishment of a communist society it means that I must be against wage raises? Please.

Even you agree that some people need abortions. Nobody needs money. Therefore abortion cannot be said to be a problem.


And notice: I have never said that the establishment of a communist society would solve those problems, but that it would probably make those problems less important.

You said abortions should be eliminated. Even if other more practical contraceptive methods were failproof, women sometimes conceive babies that they posteriorly decide that they no longer want so whatever reason. Abortions should never be totally eliminated because they will never be totally unwanted.


And by no means have I ever said that solving such problems is even a valid reason for us to seek for a communist society.

Good.


Yes? So you certainly have some data that show that women do not decide to abort because they are poor, or unemployed, or unmarried, etc?

Some women don't. My mother had an abortion for other reasons, for instance. In an ideal society would she not have had that option?


So an unwanted pregnancy is a fortunate thing because she's going to have an abortion? How that?

The fact that she can have abortion to terminate her unwanted pregnancy is a fortunate thing. I unintentionally said bs.


it is you and TragicClown who deny that there can be other reasons for a woman to have an abortion, other than "refusing to be an incubator".

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. You said that abortions should be eliminated ideally, which directly implies that you're saying that all abortions are the results of social strife that would be eliminated by an ideal society. We all know that every instance of a woman not wanting a baby cannot be eliminated by an ideal society.

[Luís Henrique]

Even you agree that some people need abortions. Nobody needs money. Therefore abortion cannot be said to be a problem.

If you don't need money, you can send me yours, I sure need it.

And since when if someone need something that something cannot be a problem?


You said abortions should be eliminated.

Did I? Where and when?

Now I am going to effectively say something: you seem to have a problem of reading comprehension.


Some women don't. My mother had an abortion for other reasons, for instance. In an ideal society would she not have had that option?

And some other women do. If poverty was eliminated, it would no longer be a reason why women would abort. See, if poverty was eliminated, there would no longer people committing suicide because of poverty. It doesn't mean that people wouldn't commit suicide for other reasons, or that if poverty was eliminated suicide should be made illegal. It just means what it means: if poverty was eliminated, people who commit suicide because of poverty wouldn't - and women who have abortions because they can't afford to raise a children probably would choose differently.


The fact that she can have abortion to terminate her unwanted pregnancy is a fortunate thing. I unintentionally said bs.

Yes, I see a pattern.


This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. You said that abortions should be eliminated ideally,

No, I didn't.


We all know that every instance of a woman not wanting a baby cannot be eliminated by an ideal society.

Probably not. There is no reason to claim that they would not be reduced by a fairer society; much less to say that "more abortions are a good thing".

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

If you don't need money, you can send me yours, I sure need it.

You drew a comparison between money and abortion in an ideal society. One is not needed, the other is. In an ideal society, that is.


And since when if someone need something that something cannot be a problem?

It's not a problem because it's a perfectly legitimate and rightful medical procedure. Even if it wasn't a necessity, it wouldn't be a problem. Some of the reasons why this medical procedure is solicited by woman are problems. The medical procedure in itself is most definitely not a problem.


Did I? Where and when?


Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society


And some other women do. If poverty was eliminated, it would no longer be a reason why women would abort. See, if poverty was eliminated, there would no longer people committing suicide because of poverty. It doesn't mean that people wouldn't commit suicide for other reasons, or that if poverty was eliminated suicide should be made illegal. It just means what it means: if poverty was eliminated, people who commit suicide because of poverty wouldn't - and women who have abortions because they can't afford to raise a children probably would choose differently.

But abortions would most certainly not be eliminated if poverty were to end.


No, I didn't.


Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society


Probably not. There is no reason to claim that they would not be reduced by a fairer society; much less to say that "more abortions are a good thing".

I did not claim that abortions would not be reduced in a fairer society. You are right in that more abortions are not necessarily a good thing.

[Luís Henrique]

Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society

As I have already shown, this was quoting another poster, to show that his position was not incompatible with a pro-choice position.

Really.


But abortions would most certainly not be eliminated if poverty were to end.The sky is blue, and the sun is yellow. And?


I did not claim that abortions would not be reduced in a fairer society. You are right in that more abortions are not necessarily a good thing.Which, on the other hand, is the claim made in the OP, incorrectly using Furedi's article to support such absurd position.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

For your benefit, here is, again, the full context of the remark you are trying to misconstrue as my position:



Abortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better societyAbortion is a social problem to be, ideally, eliminated by a better society... and the correct way to handle it while it has not been eliminated by a better society is to make it the choice of the woman involved.

Where is the contradiction?

So that no doubt remains here, I was not endorsing Green Apostle's position, I was showing there is no necessary contradiction between his position and a pro-choice stand. I don't agree with him; my point was that his position isn't a reasonable basis to restrict him (which was the issue under discussion in that thread).

Capisce?

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

edit: oh, I see, well never mind, then

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Wait!

You did say this:

I would say that there is something inherently wrong with abortion, and that that has nothing to do with morals or moralism.

What is inherently wrong with abortion is the failure of other contraceptive methods.

In a communist society, contraceptives and sexual education will be more accessible to more women, women will have less reason to believe they are unable to raise a baby, and the end of private reproduction of the labour force will likely make any baby, wanted or unwanted, the subject of collective care of the whole society.

If the demand for abortion will never be eliminated, how can you say that's it's inherently a problem?

[Luís Henrique]

If the demand for abortion will never be eliminated, how can you say that's it's inherently a problem?

Do you think there are no insoluble problems?

But I didn't say it was a problem, I said there was something inherently wrong with it. Yet I have to rephrase that; obviously what is inherently wrong with abortion is not necessarily the failure of contraceptive methods, so I was mistaken.

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

What is inherently wrong with abortions?