I'd also like to talk about the real reasons that women get abortions now.
From:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf
74% said that having a baby would dramatically interfere with her work, education, or ability to care for her other dependents
73% said she could not afford a baby right now
48% said that she did not want to be a single mother, or was having relationship problems
Nearly 40% said she was finished having children
Nearly 33% said she was not ready to have a child.
13% cited problems affecting the health of the fetus.
12% cited problems affecting their own health.
Most women (89%) cited two or more reasons. 72% cited three or more.
Let's look at some more info.
The majority (59%) of women getting abortions already has one or more children.
The majority (60%) of women getting abortions had a family income of less that twice the federal poverty level. Which includes the 30% who were living UNDER the poverty level
Here is a link showing just what those numbers mean.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/04poverty.shtml
So here are the questions I have to those wanting to ban abortion.
If you really really really want to stop abortion, what are you doing to help these families get what they need in order to have these children?
What are the social programs that you support that are going to help with the costs of raising the child? What are the social programs that you support that are going to help a woman continue her education while pregnant or a mother? What are the social programs that you support that are going to help a woman continue working, or will help her to not be worried about losing her job because of her pregnancy? What are the social programs that you support that encourage couples to stick together, and that help them work through their relationship problems? What are the social programs that you support to help these women (and their partners) earn a family supporting wage?
10% of all ALL US families (7.6 million) were under the poverty level in 2003. The corresponding numbers for unrelated individuals in poverty in 2003 were 20.4% and 9.7 million.
(from
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html )
What are the social programs that you support to get these families and individuals out of poverty? Considering 60% of all abortions are by people we consider "poor", don't you think there's a connection? I sure do.
Yet, our government, with our president declaring our "culture of life" passed this in the latest budget:
MEDICAID: cuts $4.8 billion
MEDICARE: cuts $6.4 billion
WELFARE AND CHILD SUPPORT: Cut $1.6 billion from welfare, child-support enforcement and other human services.
EDUCATION: Cuts $12.7 billion from education
(from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122100748.html )
Here's another thing to think about:
37-54% of the women getting abortions either did not use contraception, or the method failed (depending on which year surveyed). Before we start making alot of judgements about them, let's also consider this, also from the guttmacher institute:
from
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2005/02/22/index.html
"In 2002, 16.8 million women are estimated to have needed publicly supported contraceptive care, yet clinics were able to serve just 4 in 10, or 6.7 million women. As funding for programs dedicated to family planning--such as Title X of the Public Health Service Act--has decreased or leveled off, the burden of meeting women’s health care needs has shifted to Medicaid. Medicaid funding for contraceptive services has tripled since 1980, and the program now accounts for almost two-thirds of all federal and state family planning funding nationwide.
The budget President Bush presented to Congress in early February [2005] would drastically cut Medicaid as a whole, and the Administration is hoping to change the program’s rules to allow states to reduce benefits for some enrollees--possibly including eliminating the guarantee that family planning services are provided at no cost. Yet The Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that every $1 spent on contraceptive services saves $3 for pregnancy-related and newborn care alone, and a government analysis shows that states that got federal approval to expand Medicaid coverage for family planning saved money while serving more women."
To recap:
Close to half of the women in abortion clinics are there because of lack of contraception, or that contraception failed.
The vast majority of women who choose abortion do so because of poverty and lack of support for them to raise the child, - financially, emotionally, and/or physically.
If you want to drastically cut the amount of abortions performed each year, fix the above two problems.
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Ok. I guess I'm done for now. Feel free to go back to arguing over the genetic makeup of fetuses now.
Meg
