What's the best way to decrease abortion?

[moddem38]

I've been saying this for a long time, CB. If a woman can kill her unborn child, she does not deserve to be a mother. Period. That is the reason I am in favor of legal abortion for the first trimester. After that, or soon after that (around 22 weeks gestation), it becomes infanticide and should be regarded as murder of a person.

Interesting point of view from the two of you. I don't know if either of u read Freakonomics (Steve Levitt), but he argues that the crime rates have gone down since Roe v. Wade, since there are less unwanted children being born.

 

[Alinvegas]

Make the parents pay for 100% of the abortion with no gubbmint or insurance company bail outs.

 

[Arkady]

The question of whether it's fair for non-parents to subsidize children is certainly one that's open to debate. But, in the narrow context of this particular debate, I think it's reasonable to assume that subsidization does, in fact, push the abortion rate down. If raising kids was harder and more expensive, more people would choose not to do so, and only part of that would take the form of more contraceptive effort. The rest would be abortion.

 

[Citizen]

He once had a GF in the third grade.. isn't that enough?

Yeah but when it was discovered he was in his late 30's he had to break it off ......hahahahahahahahaha

 

[Woolleybugger]

stop screwing is the only answer. Down with sex.

 

[Arkady]

Abstinence is always an option. But since most people don't choose that option, it's lousy public policy to rely on it. What I'm looking at are practical measures for lowering the abortion rate. By all means, feel free to encourage abstinence and to push abstinence-favoring religions, but then realize that the abortion rate in the Bible Belt is actually horrible, relative to what it is in more sex-positive and secular societies like the Netherlands. Clearly that strategy has limited effectiveness.

 

[Arkady]

That may all be true, but it's not really a blueprint for policy action. Clearly some countries (and states) have achieved lower abortion rates than other countries (and states). How can we do that on a nationwide basis? Are you suggesting more contraception education?

 

[Arkady]

Currently, abortions in the US are more likely to be privately financed than in, say, the Netherlands. Yet their abortion rate is much lower than ours. So, that doesn't seem to get us anywhere. Do you have any practical ideas for lowering the abortion rate?

 

[Angel of Dearth]

So you tell me: What's the difference between Ireland and the Netherlands?

Why would you lean towards Netherlands? They both seem to have a "practical" solution (if what you say is true).

It would seem that since the world and anti-American Americans love to bash America for being too religious that Ireland, not the Netherlands, has the more appropriate solution.