That’s what I find so baffling about the anti-abortion lobby’s position on banning abortion (which I note is still an ideal for your group David - the difference between you and the other group is just on the realistic possibility of it happening) - it doesn’t make it go away. It doesn’t even correlate to the number of abortions performed.
For people who seem to care an awful lot about the problem, they seem to be almost superhuman in their ability to refuse to understand or acknowledge its causes and effects, and therefore do much about it.
Hi Luke,
I’m not sure whether you are being deliberately mischievous or not.
You have collapsed my “The second group whilst opposing abortion as strongly as the first group....” and my acknowledgement “that no Government in the current circumstances is going to outlaw abortion.” into
banning abortion
I think this is irresponsible if we intend debating an issue, particularly when I added a further comment about the circumstances under which abortion was banned in 19th C Britain and suggesting a “profound, deep working religious revival” would be required as a pre-condition for banning abortion.
I trust you are not referring to me when you say
For people who seem to care an awful lot about the problem, they seem to be almost superhuman in their ability to refuse to understand or acknowledge its causes and effects, and therefore do much about it
Regarding the causes of the problem of high numbers of abortion I have argued elsewhere that we should look no further than the sexual revolution of the 1960’s with its rejection of Christian teaching in respect of sexuality
Regarding numbers of abortions and whether banning them has any effect, I don’t know the numbers and your assertions, Luke on the matter, seem to be rather free floating unsubstantiations. What I would say is that Australia pre the 1960/70’s did not have anything like 60,000 abortions per year (allowing for population growth since then to bring the figure up to the current 90,000 – 100,000). Maybe 6,000, maybe a few more back then.
What I do know is that in the late 1960’s there were 20,000 adoptions per year compared with 200 in 2007/8. You work it out for yourself.
It’s obviously hard to find “hard” figures. The link you gave does make claims, but don’t show how they worked out those numbers. For example, they speak of SUS “estimates” - but no link to the paper, no footnote, they don’t even mention the name of it. Even the figures quoted are pretty wild - that somewhere between 1 million to 4 million abortions a year, which means as much as 1/4 of all abortions, including legal ones, put a women in emergency rooms.
I’m not saying it’s wrong - but I think a little more data is needed. It would be interesting to see the rates in a western country, say before Abortion was legalised, and see how injury rates dropped after legalisation.
Sure, well you can chase up the WHO study mentioned in the NYT piece if you want some more recent research.
ah - thanks. I missed that earlier article, but see where the research has come from, and it can be followed up. The obvious concern about the data (and pointed out in the article) is comparing “safe” legal abortion in first world countries against “unsafe” illegal abortion in third world countries.
I actually did a major assessment on part of this issue while studying for my Masters a couple of years back. The issue we focused on was whether or not improving women’s access to abortion - by making it universally legal - would affect the global maternal morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) rates. FYI - approximately 650,000 women die each year around the world due to pregnancy-related causes, of which approximately 70,000 deaths are attributable to unsafe abortion (figures from the WHO but pulled out of the filing cabinet of my mind).
Basically, we used El Salvador as a case study (El Salvador and Malta are the only two countries in the world where abortion is completely illegal under any circumstance) and asked - would making abortion legal, reduce El Salvador’s maternal morbidity and mortality rates? The conclusion we came to was NO, mainly because a) legalisation does not equal access (India is a perfect example of this, abortion has been legal since the 70s but thousands of women still die each year from unsafe abortions) and b) a far more important part of the maternal health equation is to educate women about sexuality and provide them with the access to birth control to prevent them from getting pregnant in the first place. So while it’s important to regulate abortion and provide safe facilities if you’re going to make it legal, in pure public health terms it’s actually far more important to promote and enable family planning, and that’s without even getting into the economic and development benefits.
This is of course primarily relevant to developing countries, where the vast burden of maternal deaths occur.
It’s not actually all that different for developed countries though -IMHO good abortion laws are essential (nobody’s going to recriminalise it, but there ways to minimise the harm of such an awful reality) the focus needs to be shifted away from the abortion side of things and onto helping women to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Getting heated up about abortion without appropriate education and resources for sexual and reproductive health is shutting the door way after the horse has bolted - look no further than the USA (where 1/4 of teenage girls have an STD according to a recent CDC study) for this one.
Well that’s enough from me for now. Got to go stir some other hornets nests ;)
nicole
PS Marie Stopes International (ignore their pro-choice rhetoric) and the WHO have very good resources on this stuff if you want to go to their websites and do a quick search.
Nic
Respectfully, I disagree with your outcomes on this issue. According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute study, the rates of abortion in New York city are 72 per 100 births. Abortion is used as a means of birth control. This is a city where birth control is free and easily accessed. Another article claims that during the Bush administration abortion rates declined. I don’t think a coincidence as Bush was very pro-life.article
Unfortunately, I would be very skeptical about anything the WHO, a humanistic institution, says about issues such as abortion.
Nic
Respectfully, I disagree with your outcomes on this issue. According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute study, the rates of abortion in New York city are 72 per 100 births. Abortion is used as a means of birth control. This is a city where birth control is free and easily accessed. Another article claims that during the Bush administration abortion rates declined. I don’t think a coincidence as Bush was very pro-life.article
Unfortunately, I would be very skeptical about anything the WHO, a humanistic institution, says about issues such as abortion.
Donna
Hi Donna,
Just wondering, how does the Guttmacher study explain the high rates of abortion in NYC?
I think you’re right, I have heard that abortion has actually declined under the Bush administration (although wouldn’t mind some additional evidence that didn’t come from a pro-life news service). IThat’s great news, but I still find the Bush abortion and SRH policies pretty troubling, including the fact that the US will not provide funding to any aid organisation that talks about abortion (doesn’t have to provide it, just acknowledge it’s an option if someone asks). This has drastically affected the funding of sexual health programs, including HIV prevention - there are a lot of people in developing countries dying because of that policy. There has got to be a middle ground.
Interesting that you object to the WHO being ‘humanist’ (something I’ve certainly never heard before). Why would this be a problem, even if they were? Does it make their data less accurate?
According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute study, the rates of abortion in New York city are 72 per 100 births. Abortion is used as a means of birth control. This is a city where birth control is free and easily accessed. Another article claims that during the Bush administration abortion rates declined. I don’t think a coincidence as Bush was very pro-life.article
Unfortunately, I would be very skeptical about anything the WHO, a humanistic institution, says about issues such as abortion.
Three things.
1. Where do you source the abortion rates in NYC at 72 (!) per 100 births? The Guttmacher Institute puts it currently at ~38 for New York.
2. Abortion rates have been slowly declining for about 30 years in the US, regardless of president.
3. The Guttmacher Institute, who you (mis)quote, did a big study with the WHO, who you are “very skeptical” of. You can’t have it both ways!
I also note that Gordon slipped in the ‘murder is illegal, but that still happens, and no one is arguing it should be made legal’ argument:
Gordon Cheng - 15 November 2008 06:22 PM
For example, I’m dissatisfied with an argument that says ‘making it illegal won’t work’. This ignores some important questions about the relationship between law and morality.
Making homicide illegal may not stop someone being killed either, but presumably we still think—on moral grounds as much as anything else—that homicide ought to be illegal. The task then becomes to back up legislation with other types of action.
If we’re going to argue for legislation on our moral own grounds (ie ‘I’m morally opposed to it, therefore it should be illegal’) regardless of whether behaviour will change, then we need to be consistent. Homosexuality should be illegal again, divorce, adultery should be illegal, as should worshipping other gods and false idols, and so on.
We also need to come up with a legal frameworks to process and punish the ~30% of women of child bearing age who have had an abortion, or will have one in the future. If we’re going to lock up one in three of these women, we’re going to need significant increases in jail size, funding, and staffing, so we need to argue for that. In tough economic times, it could be a good way to create jobs, so there’s a benefit there. Plus with more women of working age in jail, unemployment will fall.
So we can devote all our resources to these ideological aims, or we could, you know, leave that alone and focus on evidence-based approaches that actually change behaviour.
According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute study, the rates of abortion in New York city are 72 per 100 births. Abortion is used as a means of birth control. This is a city where birth control is free and easily accessed. Another article claims that during the Bush administration abortion rates declined. I don’t think a coincidence as Bush was very pro-life.article
Unfortunately, I would be very skeptical about anything the WHO, a humanistic institution, says about issues such as abortion.
Three things.
1. Where do you source the abortion rates in NYC at 72 (!) per 100 births? The Guttmacher Institute puts it currently at ~38 for New York.
2. Abortion rates have been slowly declining for about 30 years in the US, regardless of president.
3. The Guttmacher Institute, who you (mis)quote, did a big study with the WHO, who you are “very skeptical” of. You can’t have it both ways!
go Luke, i love it when someone with more time than me does the leg work :)
If we’re going to argue for legislation on our moral own grounds (ie ‘I’m morally opposed to it, therefore it should be illegal’) regardless of whether behaviour will change, then we need to be consistent.
Do we? Can’t one focus on particular matters as they present themselves?
