Transcript of discussion with Neocons on Abortion (warning: long)

[rpgamerd00d]

Here is a (heavily chopped) full transcript of my discussion with neocons (and other liberals) on Abortion.

I warn you, this is long, but very informative.

Enjoy (for those with the time on their hands)

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Lets look at the actual data of WHO is having abortions, shall we?

Link: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/teen_stats.html

Data: (only goes from 1972 to 2000, sorry, it'll have to do for purposes of discussion)

Women aged 15-19 who had abortions:
1998: 248,680
1999: 240,940
2000: 235,470

If the total abortions is "over a million" per year, then teenagers represent less than 1/4 of abortions. That means ADULTS represent 75% of them. Your diatribe about teaching abstinence "in school" is meaningless, even if it was effective, because of this. You'd be missing 75% of your target audience.

I think that pretty much nails the coffin shut on this moronic idea of abstinence.

So, whats left?
One and only one thing, the thing that makes the most logical sense - Contraception.

Since we know for a fact people are going to have sex whether you like it or not, the only rational, logical way to prevent abortions is contraception. Multiple forms of contraception provide practically perfect protection against pregnancy. Women who take "the pill", plus use condoms, plus use creams, etc. bring the efficicacy to 100%. In addition, education on HOW to use each form of contraception increases its efficacy. (link and link and link)

And if that isn't embarassing enough, there is "The Morning After" pill and other emergency contraception. IUD Emergency Contraception is 99.9% effective (0.1% failure rate). http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=513">link

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.

Abortion.

http://www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org/issues/issues_not_afraid.html

"In January of 2000 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) reported the latest statistics gathered on abortions performed in the United States. In 1997, the CDC said that 1,184,758 abortions were performed, the lowest level in two decades. Additionally, approximately 88% were performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In actual numbers that would mean that 1,042,587 were performed in the first 3 months of pregnancy or in the first trimester. That leaves approximately 14,217 that were performed after the first trimester."

Bullshit. No contraceptive has a 100% effective rate. NONE. They can get to 5-9's and it's still not 100%.

You combine two forms of Birth Control. Pill+Condom, Diaphragm+Condom.
Look at the charts of success rates quoted above.

Birth Control Pills (many brands) 99.7%
Male Condom 98%
---------------------------------
= 99.9994% combined success rate.

(on Rape exceptions to Abortion)
My googling efforts show that there is not any firm numbers on the total abortions performed in the United States in 2004, but the general consensus seems to revolve around an estimated number of about 1.3 million. About 33,000 completed rapes occurred over this same period of time. Now, some folks are willing to make an exception for the cases of rape, incest, etc. Let’s give the widest berth possible and assume that every one of those rapes resulted in a pregnancy (that also assumes, of course, that all the victims were women, and all the rapes involved vaginal penetration without any form of contraceptive). That begs the question: what brought about the other one and a quarter million or so abortions?

Ok, so can we put to rest the notion that most abortion *isn't* about birth control? I appears to me that it is.

So, would you then agree, that an increase in actual birth control (condoms especially) would be the #1 way to reduce abortions? Because, again, abstinence doesn't work on adults, because adults like to fuck and you have no venue to "teach abstinence" to adults. Not to mention, they would laugh in your face.

I don't know if that would be true, but I'm not against the open and "liberal" availability of contraception. As long as we're talking about adults I don't think it would hurt.

OK, then I'll hit you with this: why only adults?

Why should teenagers not be fully educated on contraception? Its been proven, time and time again that sex education and availability of contraception has NO EFFECT on the rate of teen sex. NO EFFECT. So, why not educate them and make contraception available so that if they make the choice to have sex, it doesn't result in a pregnancy and subsequent abortion ?

I would have abstinence taught to young people as its a perfect example of personal responsibility. I would also feel thatlearning how it is that one becomes preggers is important.

Once they're young adults, and most young adults alive today in America have been taught about this, the die is cast. If they insist on being irresponsible, thats the way its going to be.

As a matter of governmental policy I believe it undermines the parent's right to raise their children (and face social consequences) as they see fit. One person's proper educaton is another person's pornography. Jocelyn Elders advocated for masturbation education in middle school I don't think a 7th grader needs to be "taught" how do do that.

As a matter of private role, I agree. I plant to teach my kids about contraception, but I plan to do it in an individual way that takes each of my 4 kids' temperment into account. I do not want the goverment's one size fits all solution, nor do I want the rogue teacher's agenda on "tolerance and experimentation" to play into it.

Also, I don't think tax dollars should pay for contraception any more than I think they should pay for clean needles and unpoisoned heroin just because "they are going to do it anyway." There is a point where tolerance and safety morphs into enabling. Talking and educating a 16 year old about drunk driving is smart. Taking the keys and flipping him a 12 pack is stupid.

There is a problem with children, and a problem with adults. I think they are different problems.

Children are simply naive and ignorant. This should be solved with education. Now, if we want to actually make a difference, we can't very well take a position that says "Hands off, leave it up to the parents." Either you support "Big Brother" taking a hand in this, or you don't. If you want the govt to stay out of it and leave it up to parents, then you're back to teen girls getting pregnant and then we're back to "abortion as birth control".

Adults are a different but similar matter. Some truly are still ignorant. I think if we start teaching all children, then that makes less ignorant adults in the world, and eventually, no ignorant adults. Once we have no ignorant adults, then we simply have responsible adults, and irresponsible ones. Irresponsible ones are likely to still be just a tad ignorant, so maybe more education is in order.

In any case, the decision society makes to address this has to be either to turn its back on the problem and let parents handle it (status quo) or to have the govt step in (and yes, that means tax dollars towards education).

How about more controls on the education? Does one really need to teach masturbation to prevent teen pregnancies? Do we need to hand out condoms in the classroom? I don't think so. Also, schools aren't the only place to have education. A lot of progress could be made in other areas.

Obviously, the devil is in the details. But if you want to prevent pregnancies that aren't wanted, you have to intervene somehow. If you make it optional, the ignorance will simply persist. I think sex education can be very clinical and informative without bizzare things like teaching masturbation or giving out free condoms.

And school is the only place kids are almost guarenteed to go (home schooling and dropouts being the exception). I don't think you'll be able to hit a higher percentage any other way.

Ok, so sex education for kids in schools. Abstinence and contraception methods to include the proper education on the risks associated with using only one form and stating that it's safer to use two. I would advocate a healthly respect for religious views also (in the interest of tolerance), since encouraging religious teens to follow their religious teachings on abstinence are also beneficial.

Ok, what about Adults then, since thats 75% of abortions?

This issue would almost be humorous to me if it wasn't so serious.

Its one of the few issues where Republicans take the view of "the way it should be", and Democrats take the view of "well, here is how it is in the real world, lets deal with that." Normally, as we all know, those positions are usually reversed.

In "the real world" people are gonna have sex for enjoyment. There just is no way to stop it. No amount of abstinence preaching, no amount of scare tactics of STDs, no amount of laws will prevent recreational sex between adults.

As a society, we need to determine how that process occurs. I think the responsible thing to do is to throw all our weight (and money) behind sex education and contraceptive education (with abstinence being considered part of the "contraceptive" education part). Teach everyone exactly how human reproduction works, exactly how STDs work, and exactly how contraceptive methods work (including failure rates and ways to mitigate them like doubling up).

For current generation adults, we can take the approach of some kind of "advertising". (note the quotes). Either literally, as in actual ads, or perhaps through programs aimed at doctors to provide the education to their patients. I don't think actual ads are out of the question, since many people watch TV, read magazines, etc. If we, as a society, banded together behind a huge push for sex education and contraception, the real world result is abortions would go down, dramatically in the US.

I think the reason people are FOR banning abortion is, as strange as this sounds, the same reason people are FOR the Death Penalty. People are FOR the DP, because they do not have faith in a Life Sentence. People are FOR banning abortion because they do not have faith in contraception and/or faith in personal responsibility. In other words, because they feel that personal responsibility can never be "enforced", the only acceptable solution is to ban abortion.

Again, however, I will remind you that abortion will occur whether its legal or not. Even if its banned federally. Again, I bring you back to the real world and ask you: "Do you want abortions done safely or do you want women to risk their lives doing it?" Data indicates that the abortion rate actually went DOWN once Roe v Wade was passed and abortion became legal. In other words, data indicates that making it illegal increases abortions, and of course, increases the risk to women.

If banning abortion will not stop abortions, but in effect only place risk on women, then why advocate it? Why fight for it? If its unrealisitc to think banning abortion will work, and you know it has a bad downside, WHY push for it? I know the answer: because your morals say so. But guess what? Your morals are in a fight. One side says "save babies" and the other side says "the ban wont work and just hurt women, and thats also wrong."

Can't you, then, agree that the push for education and contraception is the best possible solution for all sides? That making a huge dent in abortion will at least accomplish the saving of significant lives?

Support programs like Feminst For Life's College Outreach program. Acording to this table, the three biggest groups of women seeking abortion are 15-19, 20-24, and 25-29. What do these three groups have in common? They cover the college years, when women are trying to further their education and establish their careers. The general consensus is that a woman cannot go to college or start her career AND be a mother. So these women often feel they have no choice BUT to abort. By informing these women of their FULL range of options, it is possible to lower abortions in this group.

Incidentally, this program has proven so effective that on many campuses bothe the pro-life AND the pro-choice groups work to implement it.

Wow, thats some great info there. 15-29 is 83% of abortions, with 22% falling after that.

Why compromise for rape or incest? A child in the womb that was produced by consentual sex is the same as a child in the womb that was produced by rape or incest.

The only compromise (from your list), I think, should be the life of the mother.

You are only considering the physical health of the mother, while ignoring her mental health, which I would argue is just as important to preserve from harm.

It is illegal to abuse someone mentally just as it is physically, so there is precedent in the law to protect people's mental health.

Rape, incest and incestual rape are horriblly painful on the woman who would be FORCED to carry her attackers spawn to term. That is the reason for such exceptions.

What about those mothers who are perfectly mentally healthy, until after the baby is born? Postpartum-depression is notoriously difficult to predict. Should a fear of PPD be considered a good enough reason?

Or the schizophrenic woman who decides she wants a baby and goes off her meds? Suppose the pregnancy causes a psychotic episode? Should an abortion be performed, even though she took the risk, and may not even have specified she would consider abortion in the event of mental deterioration?

Hehehehe, those are PERFECT questions. Absolutely, positively PERFECT. FLAWLESS.

Here is the answer:

Dunno, that is between the woman and her doctor.

BOOM! Pro-Choice.

[rpgamerd00d]

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