What Reduces Abortions?

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
a honest to goodness great article [url="http://www.usccb.org/prolife/publicat/lifeissues/101008.shtml"]from the USCCB[/url]:

[quote]Sometimes election years produce more policy myths than good ideas. This year one myth is about abortion. It goes like this: The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision is here to stay, and that's fine because laws against abortion don't reduce abortions much anyway. [b]Rather, "support for women and families" will greatly reduce abortions, without changing the law or continuing a "divisive" abortion debate.[/b]

Various false claims are used to bolster this myth. It is said that over three-quarters of women having abortions cite expense as the most important factor in their decision. Actually the figure is less than one-fourth, 23%. It is said that abortion rates declined dramatically (30%) during the Clinton years, but the decline stopped under the ostensibly pro-life Bush administration. [b]Actually the abortion rate has dropped 30% from 1981 to 2005; the decline started 12 years before Clinton took office, and has continued fairly steadily to the present day.[/b]

The steepest decline is among minors. Is it plausible that economic factors reduced abortions for teens but not their older sisters, or their mothers who support them?

The reality is this: [b]In 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde amendment, and federally funded abortions went from 300,000 a year to nearly zero.[/b] With its decisions in Webster (1989) and Casey (1992), [u]the Court began to uphold other abortion laws previously invalidated under Roe.[/u] States passed hundreds of modest but effective laws: bans on use of public funds and facilities; informed consent laws; parental involvement when minors seek abortion; etc. Dr. Michael New's rigorous research has shown that these laws significantly reduce abortions. In the 1990s, debate on partial-birth abortion - kept in the public eye, ironically, by President Clinton's repeated vetoes of a ban on this grisly late-term procedure - alerted many Americans to the violence of abortion and shifted public attitudes in a pro-life direction, just as growing concern over AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases was giving new force to the abstinence message for teens. [b]Now the Court has upheld a partial-birth abortion ban, and signaled that other laws to save unborn children and their mothers from the horrors of abortion may be valid.[/b] If Roe is reversed outright, that will allow more laws that can further reduce abortions.

[b]By contrast, a pending federal "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) would knock down current laws reducing abortions, and require public programs for pregnant women to fund abortion. No one supporting that bill can claim to favor reducing abortions.[/b]

Many women are pressured toward abortion, and they need our help. The pressures are partly, but only partly, economic in nature. Women are influenced by husbands, boyfriends, parents and friends, and by a culture and legal system that tells them the child they carry has no rights and is of no consequence. [b]Law cannot solve all problems, but it can tell us which solutions are unacceptable - and today Roe still teaches that killing the unborn child is an acceptable solution, even a "right."[/b] Without ever forgetting the need to support pregnant women and their families, that tragic and unjust error must be corrected if we are to build a society that respects all human life.[/quote]

[the lords sheep]

Dead on! Really great... I'm forwarding it!

[Madame Vengier]

Abortions (and unwanted children) will be reduced only when men and women stop sharing their bodies with people they shouldn't be. That's all.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Lil Red' post='1679018' date='Oct 16 2008, 01:17 PM']+J.M.J.+
a honest to goodness great article [url="http://www.usccb.org/prolife/publicat/lifeissues/101008.shtml"]from the USCCB[/url]:



[/quote]
Thanks for sharing that article, Lil Red!
I think it very relevant; I get sick of hearing people talk as though the key to fighting abortion is throwing more federal tax money at government social programs (often while arguing against supporting pro-life laws).

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1679245' date='Oct 16 2008, 05:43 PM']Abortions (and unwanted children) will be reduced only when men and women stop sharing their bodies with people they shouldn't be. That's all.[/quote]
Amen.
Contrary to popular liberal opinion, abortion is at its root primarily a moral problem, not an economic problem. The commonness of abortion in society is due to the fact that we have become a licentious, immoral society, which places personal hedonistic pleasure and convenience ahead of morality and human life - not because the government is not spending enough.

Until morality is restored, no amount of laws nor government programs will rid us of this evil. However, this does not mean we should abandon the fight to make law just and protect the innocent.

[Saint Therese]

abstinence

[Didymus]

what's wrong with both restrictive laws and support?

[SpareTime]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1679245' date='Oct 16 2008, 04:43 PM']Abortions (and unwanted children) will be reduced only when men and women stop sharing their bodies with people they shouldn't be. That's all.[/quote]

i would venture to say that some married couples have gotten abortions before, though the vast majority are probably due to unmarried women getting them. but, birth control (the pill) is often abortifacient and many married couples use it, too. at the root it isn't just loose single women who get abortions. it's a much deeper problem, a moral problem at the root, that disrespects life and the marital union. pray for our country and all countries and peoples who don't understand the value of life.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='SpareTime' post='1679816' date='Oct 17 2008, 12:51 PM']i would venture to say that some married couples have gotten abortions before, though the vast majority are probably due to unmarried women getting them. but, birth control (the pill) is often abortifacient and many married couples use it, too. at the root it isn't just loose single women who get abortions. it's a much deeper problem, a moral problem at the root, that disrespects life and the marital union. pray for our country and all countries and peoples who don't understand the value of life.[/quote]

That's why, while trying to reduce abortion, we have to simultaneously reduce the use of contraception. And the only way to do that is to clarify what marriage truly is, and what sex truly is. If we teach that sex is more than just pleasure, and elaborate that sex is only truly meaningful when within marriage (in answer to those practicing pre-marital sex who protest "but we're in love"), then sex will only be shared within a marriage, for the right reasons and in the right ways, which will help eliminate our problem of abortion and our problem of contraception. (Another thing that would greatly help is putting the truths about abortion out there.)

Our society is very self-centered where everyone is encouraged to seek pleasure - be this through money or power, and of course sex for the physical aspect of pleasure. Contraception - or the idea of it - has only made abortions more prominent because abortion is seen as contraception.

Edited October 17, 2008 by HisChildForever

[Didymus]

Condoms don't kill babies. Sure there's still the sinful aspect of taking out procreation, but we would rather have that then abortive controceptives and surgical abortions, right?

[tinytherese]

Theology of the Body is the way to go.

also www.chastity.com and even the secular version of the site www.pureloveclub.net

[Didymus]

do we need to convert the nation to Christianity before we stop the killing?

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Didymus' post='1679865' date='Oct 17 2008, 02:17 PM']Condoms don't kill babies. Sure there's still the sinful aspect of taking out procreation, but we would rather have that then abortive controceptives and surgical abortions, right?[/quote]

What I meant was that as contraceptions become popular and accepted by society, sex becomes degraded into nothing more but an act of pleasure; therefore sex happens outside of marriage, and when contraceptions fail, abortion can happen.

[HisChildForever]

In 1968, Pope Paul VI predicted that abortion would be a result of contraception and that contraception would lead to promiscuity which, in turn, would lead to divorce.

Obviously this has all come true, just look at our society! Therefore, there [b]is[/b] a relationship between contraception and abortion.

[quote]Subtitled "On the Regulation of Birth", it re-affirms the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding abortion, contraception, and other issues pertaining to human life. Mainly because of its prohibition of all forms of artificial contraception, the encyclical has been controversial. [b]The document is sometimes described as prophetic by those who believe that its four predictions about the effects of contraception on society were accurate.[/b]Pope Paul VI did not issue any additional encyclicals in the remaining ten years of his pontificate.[/quote]

Source: [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanae_Vitae"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanae_Vitae[/url]

[quote]Let’s begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae’s specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.[/quote]

[quote]Tiger has further argued—as Humanae Vitae did not explicitly, though other works of Catholic theology have—for a causal link between contraception and abortion, stating outright that “with effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever. . . . Contraception causes abortion.”[/quote]

Source: [url="http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6262"]http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6262[/url]

[CatherineM]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1680018' date='Oct 17 2008, 05:34 PM']In 1968, Pope Paul VI predicted that abortion would be a result of contraception and that contraception would lead to promiscuity which, in turn, would lead to divorce.

Obviously this has all come true, just look at our society! Therefore, there [b]is[/b] a relationship between contraception and abortion.[/quote]

Isn't it amazing how someone who has never been married, or had children, can be so wise about human sexual relationships?

[dUSt]

[quote name='Didymus' post='1679870' date='Oct 17 2008, 02:22 PM']do we need to convert the nation to Christianity before we stop the killing?[/quote]
Christians have more abortions than any other religion.