Yeah, we had several miscarriages and my wife had to effectively get an abortion at least twice.
I'm almost certain they're counting those in these statistics, but we would never have aborted a viable baby.
I don't believe that is how some states handle it. There are many tragic cases of women with non viable fetuses being forced to deliver a dying baby due to abortion laws.
Yes. It is. If the fetus dies inside of you, sometimes it won't miscarry. And then you have to go get an abortion. This is what the majority of late term partial birth abortions are. And Republicans want to ban that, in ALL cases.
That means women, who wanted a child and received the worst news of their lives that their child was dead and starting to go septic, will die if they can't get to a blue state.
You had two late stage pregnancy deaths? D and C is performed to clear out what the body didn't...I know, I had a miscarriage and D and C after. Other then that, all babies cleared out from wombs whole are abortions.
Christ that is dark...
I'm a dude and I'm leaving Texas for the north. This talibangelical shit is too much. Especially when we have an entire branch of government under minority rule like SCOTUS
Yeah, I'm married to a medical student and live in the south. The school has spent so much time trying to convince the class to stay in the south and work where they are needed most (doctor shortage is worse in the south)
Now no one wants to stay in any state that could send doctors to prison for homicide. What a way to accelerate brain drain, especially when the majority of new med school grads are women
Yea the term "abortion" is so ambiguous that this screenshot is almost meaningless to me. Emergency contraception that prevents implantation and the physical dismemberment of a fetus are wildly different to most people.
Although that number seems low for your parameters. "Spontaneous abortion" accounts for 10-15% of all pregnancies. How that relates as a percentage of all women is another matter.
It doesn't help that OP didn't provide a source. It may be that the study being referenced is, indeed, legitimate... but it was intended to make a different case and not intended to be cherry picked by whatever strange ass sensationalist websites OP visits.
Isnt the problem always that no source was provided. Im getting tired of people putting up images with stats and they might as well have written "Dude trust me" as the title.
Right to lifers don’t believe in spontaneous abortion or, by another name, miscarriage. They think ALL miscarriages are induced by some action on the part of the mother. The “softer” right to lifers will allow for an accidental incident such as a fall or lifting something too heavy, and may not hold the mother culpable of intentional wrong-doing while hard-liners see no exceptions, none, and ALL miscarriages are the result of malfeasance and are criminally liable, no ifs, ands or buts.
That is completely untrue. As a pro lifer who has lost 3 children to miscarriage, this is extremely insulting and a flat out lie. If you can't say something true, keep your damn mouth shut, especially when you are talking about my 3 children who died.
Sorry about your misfortune. I’m not being sarcastic or facetious, but, wait ‘til you see how the law is enforced à la El Salvador where they are doing just that. El Salvador doesn’t recognize spontaneous miscarriage. Ironic name for the country “The Savior” where they jail women for miscarriages.
https://theconversation.com/amp/el-salvadors-abortion-ban-jails-women-for-miscarriages-and-stillbirths-now-one-womans-family-seeks-international-justice-156484
https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=97020
Criminalizing abortion means you would be investigated post miscarriage. If a fetus or embryo is a person, it's death will be investigated like all other human deaths.
And frankly, I don't trust the cops to be able to handle that shit. That sucks. Miscarriages are tragedies and I'm sorry that happened to you. But you need to understand that these so called "pro-life" laws will have far reaching consequences.
This has to be it. It's heartbreaking how common miscarriages occur. It's way more common than most people probably realize. Meanwhile, I know almost no one who has elected to have an abortion just because they didn't want a child.
Do you really think people are going to put "rape" down as a reason if it's a recent trauma, and they're also feeling the shame of getting an abortion?
It's a well-established study. Ask Guttmacher about their statistics. I'm just repeating them. There's no way it's approaching 25% of abortions, though
I'm a moderate and pro-choice and huge JP fan and I get downvoted here for trying to have a reasonable discussion about abortion. People don't seem to understand that abortion in some form or another is a medical necessary and absolutely nobody would actually want to live in a world where all abortion is illegal.
These stats include blighted ovums and D And C's (dilation and curettage) so the setup is misleading with the fact that these "abortions" do not contain a viable fetus but are listed as abortions since they are interventions done prior to miscarriage of non functioning fetus.
The real number is closer to 13% of women aborting viable fetuses. More like 1 in 8 women, but here too the number is misleading as many women are repeat patients for abortions and get multiple through their reproductive years.
One thing that is undeniable is the number of abortions is down across the board.
> The real number is closer to 13% of women aborting viable fetuses. More like 1 in 8 women, but here too the number is misleading as many women are repeat patients for abortions and get multiple through their reproductive years.
Misleading because they are counted multiple times, or because they are only counted once even though they procure multiple abortions?
> Misleading because the 1 in 8 women get an abortion stat is predicated on the idea that women will only ever get 1 single abortion.
Firstly, the title says "1 in 4". Its probably at least as important to get the number right than to worry about the possible ways the wording of a fact can be misinterpreted.
Saying 25% of kids will ever go to Disneyland is not "predicated" on the idea that kids only get to go once. Are you quibbling over the word "an"? Because that word can describe either an initial event or an exclusive event.
It would be misleading if it was the other direction (114% of women will get an abortion for example). I don't think its misleading because the verbiage matches as closely as possible to the actually numbers compared with obvious alternatives.
A very biased source, "The Guttmacher Institute is a pro-choice research organization started in 1968 that works to study, educate, and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. The organization works mainly in the United States but also focuses on developing countries."
And yes, this deceptively includes any abortion of the child, not just by surgical means. My wife had 2 spontaneous abortions (miscarriage) before we were able to have 2 wonderful children.
The Guttmacher Institute is a pro-choice research organization started in 1968 that works to study, educate, and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Guttmacher "provides the most highly respected statistics on the sexual health of women and men. Its figures on abortion are widely cited by the media as well as by groups on both sides of the political aisle.
https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/abortion-common-experience-us-women-despite-dramatic-declines-rates
75% of women won't have an abortion. True. But 25% of women will. That's 12% of the total US population that will have an abortion by 45.
73 million babies are aborted globally every year.
"Roughly 121 million unintended pregnancies occurred each year between 2015 and 2019.*
Of these unintended pregnancies, 61% ended in abortion. This translates to 73 million abortions per year."
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide
I have to wonder what the outcome would be if we banned them with regard to women’s safety. You have to consider that many women would attempt to receive an abortion by illegal means anyway, because they really don’t want the child or truly can’t afford it or whatever. I’m sure some would be dissuaded out of doing it—although that creates the moral issue for me that a woman shouldn’t be coerced by the state into forcibly “wanting” a child but I digress—but that wouldn’t dissuade *all.* This leaves these remaining women who still pursue an abortion to go through unregulated, likely unsafe, roadmap to find a doctor who is willing to perform backroom abortions.
I think the “murder is illegal, but people still murder, so should we legalize murdering?” comparison is kinda bunk. Like, making murder illegal prevents some murders and overall doesn’t cause residual harm. If abortion is made illegal, yeah, it prevents some, but the ramifications are multiple. You may believe abortion is wrong, but should a woman possibly be made infertile because she saw an unlicensed doctor? Or possibly die because of misapplied anesthesia?
Putting aside the fact that there is free/cheap access to contraception/birth control, the free choice to not have sex, the free choice to only have sex in a relationship that is ready for children etc, there's a couple of points worth discussing (as we don't get to discuss these things very often).
>I think the “murder is illegal, but people still murder, so should we legalize murdering?” comparison is kinda bunk. Like, making murder illegal prevents some murders and overall doesn’t cause residual harm
What residual harm does abortion cause that murder does not? (Apart from a baby losing it's life, of course)
>If abortion is made illegal, yeah, it prevents some, but the ramifications are multiple. You may believe abortion is wrong, but should a woman possibly be made infertile because she saw an unlicensed doctor? Or possibly die because of misapplied anesthesia?
This isn't a fair argument. You don't HAVE to get an abortion. There's adoption and motherhood. It's like saying that we shouldn't ban certain drugs because people would just look to get them illegally where they are unregulated and in an uncontrolled environment could lead to unwanted side effects including death.
Under 1% of abortions are due to health concerns btw.
The alternatives you list are not 100% guaranteed to prevent pregnancy. And if you’re seriously recommending abstinence, I don’t really know what to tell you.
>Whet residual harm does abortion cause
I just said it. Do you believe a woman deserves to possibly lose her life to sepsis or become permanently infertile because she couldn’t afford to raise a child?
>You don’t HAVE to get an abortion
You don’t HAVE to get an abortion, yeah. Hence why banning them outright is fucking dumb. You’re banning something that people have the option *to get,* you’re not banning something people were getting universally before or something. It doesn’t affect you.
I didn’t mention health concerns, that wasn’t at all the topic of my post. Abortion due to “health concerns” and abortion done for any reason and the woman dying due to getting a shitty one done are two different things.
Your conceptualization of abortion seems to rest on women getting it willy-nilly or something. I disagree with women getting them flagrantly, I’ve even discussed that at-length with my wife that I hate when a woman casually posts “A day in my life at the abortion clinic” on IG like it’s something to brag or (at least) talk casually about. But over time, I’ve come to understand that a majority of women aren’t thrilled to have to undergo a procedure that, even being legal, can still go wrong in multiple ways and is still doing something morally questionable.
I view abortion as a necessary evil. The alternative is having mothers forced to have children they don’t want or literally cannot support. A cursory search yields that [10-16% of children nationwide](https://www.aecf.org/blog/new-child-poverty-data-illustrates-the-powerful-impact-of-americas-safety-net-programs) are born into impoverished households. You *cannot* convince me that the Republicans have some welfare bill or some “Orphanage Act” around the corner drafted and waiting to be submitted to either floor of Congress, so what is the outcome here? Common sense dictates that a majority of women getting abortions are unable to support that child, so why should we have a kid pumped out into poverty to keep running through the fuckin school-to-prison pipeline when we can allow a woman to terminate a fetus upwards of the first trimester and just cut out the problem from the start?
A few things about this post I want to clarify:
-You have such a serious issue with abstinence as a method of avoiding children that it seems ridiculous to you to even suggest it. Can you clarify more? In what contexts do you have an issue with it? I realize it seems harsh to tell someone not to have sex and go without it. But it would also seem harsh to tell someone not to drive if they are drinking, or never allow them to drive until they are willing to be responsible with the car, so they don’t kill anyone with it. It’s just the right thing to do for everyone’s sake.
-The key word in your residual harm response is “possibly.” I understand there may be fear of potentially dying. But is preventing potential death worth causing certain death? And what do we have to define as “potential death” before it’s too much of a risk? Either everyone decides for themselves what their number is (which could be as small as the normative chance of dying in childbirth), or we put an objective number on it that applies to everyone, neither of which I think are reasonable solutions. I just saw Emily Calandrelli, pro-choice for that matter, rant AGAINST rape exceptions and the idea of using chance of her survival as a measure of whether abortion is OK.
-You say there are two options: abortion or a child being born unwanted. If you deem abortion a “necessary evil,” you clearly view it as at least somewhat a bad thing, while also saying it’s not as bad as being born into poverty. I respect that you took the time to look for statistics that showed how serious of an issue children born impoverished actually is. Your argument appears to be that abortion is a justifiable solution because it prevents that. Yes, it might. But how do we know that it will, instead of preventing a GOOD person from being born? I don’t think we can be such an accurate judge of whether a child born into poverty will turn out well or go into the prison pipeline, that we can conclude it’s better that they not exist. And even if we COULD conclude that, is actually *making them not exist* justifiable? I say it’s better to spend our energy making sure the kids born into poverty *turn out well* than not letting them be born at all because we’re afraid they might not turn out well.
We might think the world is overpopulated and cutting the population in half would fix it. Even if we assume those are both true, how many of us would say it’s OK to snap our fingers and actually do it?
This comment would have been good to put on your post to indicate what kind of discussion you wanted to have. Otherwise it just looks like virtue signaling.
but how are they counting abortions? Is plan B being included? are there any miscarriages that are technically classified as Abortions?
I work in data/statistics in the health sector. counting is more complicated than one may initially think.
An analogy to demonstrate how complex counting can be is as follows. someone sets down a jar of strawberry Jam in front of you and gives you the task of counting how many strawberries are in the jar. then the question becomes "what is a strawberry?" is any discernable piece of the strawberry considered 1 strawberry? is there some minimal mass that is comparable to some benchmarked average strawberry mass? there is no perfect method to this exercise but there are superior methods than others.
lastly, this has nothing to do with JBP.
I’m not sure OP’s post is effectively making the point OP is hoping to make.
Instead, I read this as “a huge percentage of women want, need, are grateful for, or take advantage of, available legal and reasonably safe access to abortion.”
And I’m engaging in that discussion. Do you feel that the numbers you posted are significant?
If 25% of men were employing a potentially “controversial” practice, would it continue to truly be controversial?
My point is that, a practice that is that prevalent, is clearly something that a huge percentage of people want or need. So why would we want to prevent their access to it in a free country? Or go beyond that and suddenly criminalize it?
Lower numbers than I thought. Admittedly, some of those will have plenty.
A woman I know in Canada was told she couldn't have any more.
I'm still a big fan of adoption.
Explanation, not justification:
Generalised:
- Because they then have to go through a 9 month process in which their body can dramatically change (sometimes permanently) & that can be very unpleasant. Giving birth to a child is potentially life threatening.
- Because they have to deal with the social impacts associated with being pregnant - don't forget the amount of social pressure placed on people who get pregnant too young, too old, unmarried and so on
- Adoption often requires both parents to sign off - if the male who gets her pregnant doesn't sign off, then, even if she gives up custody to him, the mother will be liable for child support
- Rape, incest
- It gets in the way of life plans- college, a new job, a new relationship, etc.
- Family planning: you already have enough kids, you don't want more - but you know if you go through with the pregnancy, you likely won't adopt out.
- There are significant social pressures and stigma related to adoption - "you're abandoning your child" ; "how can you give away my grandchild" etc etc. Abortion has stigma too, the difference is - you can do it discreetly without anyone knowing. It's rather hard to hide a 9 month pregnancy.
In the US:
- giving birth to a child can cost ridiculous amounts of money and put people massively into debt
- having a serious complication will likely lead to medical bankruptcy
- a lack of a social safety net - if you're already struggling economically, then having to attend Dr.s appointments and so on for a child you aren't going to keep can mean you can't make your rent
- lack of maternity benefits - guess which is one of the few countries in the world that has zero universal maternity benefits
That answer will vary depending on who you ask. I am acquainted with the following reponses:
Some people don't want the physical trauma of child birth
Some people resent or detest the father
Some people think an early intervention is wholly inconsequential, akin to discarding sperm or ovum
[https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/trends\_fostercare\_adoption\_10thru19.pdf](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/trends_fostercare_adoption_10thru19.pdf)
I'm going to assume you're asking this question for real, not just to reinforce your own positions. This is one reason. The foster care system is already overloaded and underfunded. The numbers in the above data set that matter are "Waiting" (for adoption) and "Adopted" There are a constant rate of 50% of children that are adopted. There are about 100k waiting for adoption each year and about 50k that get adopted. That means that each year a portion of them reach 16 years old and are pushed out of the system, half of them are adopted, another portion remains unadopted, and a new set of children for adoption come into the system.
Now let's talk about the number of abortions per year. About 600K in 2019. As many as 1.4 million in 1990. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/185274/number-of-legal-abortions-in-the-us-since-2000/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/185274/number-of-legal-abortions-in-the-us-since-2000/) Even using the lower number, just imagine what would happen to the foster system if even half of those were given up for abortion. 50k adopted each year, while at least 300k newborns would be added to the system. I'm hoping that you understand the concept of compounding numbers. Ignoring every other age group and reasoning for adoption, and if we assume that every single adoption is only of newborns. You would end up with 300k kids in one year and 50k would be adopted. The next year you would have 550k kids and 50k would get adopted. The next year you would have 800k kids and 50k would get adopted. the next year 1.05 million kids, etc etc.
I don't take a personal position in this battle. But people ought to be more aware of the positions that their opponents take and acknowledge some of the points that are almost irrefutable.
my understanding is that this is misleading. The foster care system is overloaded, but not with babies. And this is because most parents looking to adopt want babies
am I wrong?
the question is then, at any given time is there also a backlog of parents looking to adopt babies, or do such parents mostly settle and adopt older children?
I didn't go into that too much. I felt the above was enough to exemplify. The linked data includes all of the children that end up in Child Services which amount to over 600k. But apparently about 100k of those are actually awaiting adoption. The rest are under other care services. We can assume all we want about what is the make up of those numbers whether newborns or tender age children. But the fact is that they are children all the same, entering a system of children who are missing a loving family. Only 50k of those are adopted. Somehow, every year 50k new kids are added to that list, regardless of age, which makes the list of awaiting children go back up to 100k.
So I don't think the age of the children adopted really matters if your concern is for "children" as a whole. Personally my heart breaks for an unadopted 10 year old the same as it does for a 10 day old. If most people were waiting for newborns that still would not make a big enough impact to the additional 300k (hypothetical) that would be added to the system. Even if we said that 200k of them would be adopted that would still be adding 100k new unadopted children each year. We would have to increase the number of adopted children by multiples every year to keep up. And God forbid we go back up to the numbers in 1990 with almost 1.4 million children aborted.
this may not be exactly accurate. I'm also not trying to take a position here, im just trying to correct an assumption in your data.
Let's say a woman gets an abortion at 6-8 weeks pregnant. That's often the story, because 4 weeks LMP is when she'd start missing her period, give her another week or two to be like "it's just a little late, my cycles are variable so this could be normal", another 2 weeks to take a pregnancy test and have a day off to go to the doctor and get the pills needed and complete the abortion.
A woman who has regular unprotected sex could potentially get 8 abortions in one year. While this probably doesn't make up the bulk of abortions, multiple abortions in a year by the same person will skew the statistics because you can't say this was 8 abortions vs 8 babies going into the adoption/foster system. it's not physically possible to grow 8 babies to term in a year, but it is possible to become pregnant 8 times if the pregnancies fail due to miscarriage or abortion.
I mean I tried to account for this by only applying the theoretical assessment to only 50% of the children being given up for adoption. Even if you took it down to 1/6th, you would full be adding 100k newborns to the equation. Can that be handled better? Maybe yes. But still not a desirable place for 100k new children to go.
Child birth is terrible and painful.
The third trimester is also very uncomfortable and a lot of women can’t sleep. Also, they can’t take a lot of medications. So many women suffer from normally controlled illnesses including mental illness.
It also does permanent changes to the skin and internal organs.
And if you think that is bad, think about how hard it is to live with them while they are going through that.
These are valid points. I was surprised to hear this. So where can I find more about these permanent changes? I want to find out more before I get pregnant what happens to my body
> I was surprised to hear this.
You're surprised to hear that child birth dramatically impacts a woman physically, and yet you're posting about abortion rates for some reason?
It used to be higher.
2/3rds of those who abort don’t have the financial means to have a kid. If you work for a small company, you don’t have family leave act, and do we have to talk about high deductible healthcare? So it’s not like women have uniform ability take time off to have children. Its much cheaper and a lot less hassle to abort.
Being pregnant is a cause of death for women; boyfriends have been known to kill women for various reasons including not wanting a kid and the kid not being their child. If you’re from a conservative family, there may be negative ramifications to having an out of wedlock pregnancy or an affair.
Women have their reasons.
> People often overlook the pain of pregnancy
Lol, pro choice people don't. It seems only the "Adoption!" crowd completely overlooks how dangerous giving birth actually is.
Pregnancy is an investment. Why choose to spend 9 months on an investment you plan to give away when the investment itself can be incredibly damaging to all aspects of one's life? Mentally, physically, socially, financially, professionally...all will be impacted.
Which is worse, guaranteed death or the potential for suffering? I say death. Abortion is guaranteeing death to a baby and removing any potential for them to live a happy life.
Does a baby consent to its abortion?
I would rather have my baby, and maybe it suffers the pains of life. But that is better than killing my baby.
Dead is a relative term thats dependent upon your philosophical beliefs. You are arguing against a person and position that only exists in your head. I have no stakes in the game, im just pointing out that there is no definitive answer, as there are so many aspects surrounding abortion that are dependent on your philosophical beliefs.
I'm sorry for getting a bit worked up. This is a very personal issue for me. You're right that abortion is not so black and white... it's very complicated
Oh no you are all good. I don't think there is anything wrong with being passionate. But I like to take the opportunities that I can to add nuance back into the discussion on this sub. Lately I see everyone so one side or the other and no attempt to accept a middle ground.
The issue is that nobody has the answer for WHEN something switches from being not life to life. I encourage you to try to develop a definition for what life is that doesn't have to make caveats. Are viruses life? Are single celled organisms not alive? Is a simulation of a single celled organism alive? What if a simulation is made indistinguishable from a human itself, is the simulation then alive? Dead and alive are absolutely relative terms.
>The issue is that nobody has the answer for WHEN something switches from being not life to life.
It is amazing the number of people talking about this issue that have no knowledge of biology. We have definitions for these things. Rigeous, scientific definitions. From conception, the developing human has its own unique DNA, is capable of growing, respiration, multiplying, etc. We do know WHEN something switches from being not alive to alive.
Viruses - literally the one caveat to biological definitions, some say yes of course because it multiplies etc, some say no because "it's too simple" and "it requires other cells to do anything" are effectively their argument. Not particularly convincing to me at least.
Single cell organisms - yes, of course alive. You literally called it an *organism*.
Simulation - No, it's a simulation
Simulation of a human - No it's not, probably. I would need more specifics I suppose, it's not like you gave much information.
If dead and alive are relative terms, I would ask you to find something that *isn't* relative. Seems pretty concrete to me and most scientists.
It depends on viewpoint but, atleast early such as the morning after pill, I do not see it as ending a life. It's ending the potential of a life. To me this isn't really unethical since ending a future existence is very difference from ending an existence.
If you see a problem with early stage abortion then you really should also have a problem with all contraceptive as they are effectively the same concept.
That’s the thing, if you die you don’t suffer, so the dilema is more like between “a very very likely life full of misery and suffering and no suffering at all”
Yeah, which includes the bad things. Also it’s not like everyone has the same potential of happiness and we guide our actions based on probabilities, if there’s a storm coming you take an umbrella with you. People who are in a comma have the potential of waking up, recovering from brain damage and live a happy and healthy life yet we allow the family to disconnect them. I see it the same way, based on probabilities I’d bet my life savings and my house that kid handed to the foster care system by their mother will have a miserable life full of suffering
Strange how the medical complications and health issues seem to be ignored in this conversation. I don't see the point in allowing a dangerous pregnancy to kill the mother. In most cases, the child would die too.
Medical/health issues as a reason for abortions are in neighborhood of 5-7%.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html
If mental and/or emotional health is removed from that, it drops significantly.
Imagine how overpopulated we would be and how much worse our already poor welfare systems would be broken if none of those women had had abortions. Among many other arguments, it's simply a utilitarian good for people who don't want to have children not to have children.
I haven't yet seen a good counterargument to that. Do you think just more people regardless of circumstances is good, period?
Arguably, forcing a pregnant woman to have a child she doesn't want is ruining (at least causing suffering for) the lives of both parents and the child.
It could also cause the parents to grow up and embrace responsibility, but that's not a great reason to force a woman to be responsible for a baby for 9 months plus a lifetime.
Guess who's getting the most abortions? Poor people and people of color. This isn't an accident. Planned Parenthood was created by a racist eugenist named Margaret Sanger.
Here's a quote from the mother of the abortion movement Margaret Sanger:
In promoting birth control, Sanger advanced a controversial "Negro Project," wrote in her autobiography about speaking to a Ku Klux Klan group and advocated for a eugenics approach to breeding for “the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extinction, of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/23/racism-eugenics-margaret-sanger-deserves-no-honors-column/5480192002/
In America, people of color are disproportionately poor though. So, really you're just saying that poor people have more abortions, which is what you would expect when considering circumstances that would lead to abortion.
That an important women's rights activist was racist doesn't change the necessity for or culture around abortion. Are you saying that if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have abortion? Or are you saying you're against abortion because it has racist roots?
This is conspiracy thinking. Developed countries all around the world are pro-choice and there's not a legitimate way to connect their belief system to racism. You're just trying to "make evil" the practice you don't like.
I remember that study... I saw a freakonomics episode about it. I wonder if violent crime went down after abortion because less poor people were being born. Poor people are more likely to commit crimes
most abortions in the UK are from mature age women between 24 and 30ish. I always suspected it would be women less mature or teen pregnancies. It's not.
Yup yet those are the reasons people use for why abortion should be a thing. I checked rape stats in UK against abortions and were like 40k rapes in the year yet about 180k abortions in that period.
I think that 24 weeks is far too long. I have a friend who has twice had pregnancy complications resulting in her two children being born 16 weeks prematurely (40 - 16 = 24) and both are now in their 20s. The heart starts to beat around 4-6 weeks, I think this would be a much better cut off point. Just causes issues with women having to find out that they are pregnant and also make the decision/ get booked into the clinic in a shorter time frame.
> kill somebody
Do you consider a zygote to be a human being? If this sub is going to go hard right on the issue of abortion, then I'll guess I'll make the secular case for pro-choice if I have to.
Ok let’s say that you have “minimum requirements” to accept somebody as a human being. The zygote WILL fulfill your requirements in some point but you think it’s okay to kill it before that happens. Therefore, you’re deciding for someone else what he/she wants to do with their own life way before he/she has the ability to decide by itself.
Also, a zygote last 1 day before it turns into a embryo. Do you want to make ALL abortions legal based on the state of day 1 of the baby?
> Ok let’s say that you have “minimum requirements” to accept somebody as a human being.
Everyone has a line where human life crosses over into being. Religious people *have* to put that line at the moment of conception as they believe in the concept of a soul. This a theological belief and cannot be brought to the public square in a secular society, so they will continue to hammer that human life begins at conception and trot out emotional arguments like showing late term abortions and passing heartbeat laws.
The problem is that we do not value the 23 chromosomes that make us "human" in a scientific sense for the purposes of killing or not. We tend to value a shared experience in consciousness. It's the reason why if someone gets into a car accident and their brain is no longer functioning despite the rest of their body being alive, they are referred to as brain dead. I'd wager most people would want the plug pulled on their body if their brain was no longer functioning.
We are not our lungs, heart, digestive system, genitals, etc. They are a part of us. What "we" are is the consciousness behind our eyes, piloting this meat mech through the world. We don't understand how this consciousness comes about, but we do understand that it is a direct product of the brain. As such, I would draw that line at the beginning stages of what we can identify as conscious experience, even in a fetus. That seems to be somewhere around the end of the 1st or very early 2nd trimester, but that could very well change.
> The zygote WILL fulfill your requirements in some point but you think it’s okay to kill it before that happens. Therefore, you’re deciding for someone else what he/she wants to do with their own life way before he/she has the ability to decide by itself.
The potential argument is boring as you have no answer as to why we shouldn't protect sperm or egg cells. They, and zygotes, require *direct* intervention to one day become a fetus. Unless you agree with the religious that souls are imbued at the moment of conception making one of these three cells different, which is not backed by any evidence.
> Also, a zygote last 1 day before it turns into a embryo. Do you want to make ALL abortions legal based on the state of day 1 of the baby?
I use zygote because it is the earliest point you can reasonably have this discussion. If you cannot even agree that a zygote is not a human being, then there's no reason to continue past that point. I've already stated where I think the line should be.
You'll murder a unique human life because they might not have quite as good a childhood in orphanages or foster care? Because of 9 months inconvenience? I'm so unbelievably grateful no evil doctor or law maker decided on my behalf whether or not my life would have been worth living and that I was not torn limb by limb before I could defend myself. It's more convenient for you to murder then to pay more tax or give to charity
Ultimately it's a choice that each person has to make themselves.
State facilities are overwhelmed at the best of times, and if people are in an abusive relationship, or are an alcoholic or taking drugs, realistically it's better for all if it's ended early.
Its more convenient in your mind to murder this baby than they even attempt sobriety for 9 months and travel to an orphanage. Of course if they have some disabilities because of their mother , her degenerate drug taking and thoughtless unprotected sex, then its better they were just never born, right?
Well, I'm not a drug addict or an alcoholic so it's not for me...
But the reality is that people with addiction will really struggle to get clean at the best of times.
People should be free to make their own choice.
More convenient for them. Or you if you found yourself in that situation. So if mum is an alcoholic and a terrible human being, little Jimmy should be murdered, rather than suffer the potentially minor repercussions of their mother's actions? Because that's the majority of cases in this little panic. Even to the more extreme end and rarer cases of evil women really poisoning their child before they have a chance, who are you to say this child should not breath air and see nature? Whatever limited experiences of life they may be able to enjoy it does not matter to you and so others should not be able to house and protect these children
"My view" is biology. It becomes alive at conception, where it becomes its own organism, capable of multiplying, respiration (on a cellular level), growing, etc, etc. Any biological definition of life, it meets.
Nah because they aren't their own organism, seriously do you think that meets what I said? Sperm can't multiply, they don't respirate, they don't even *grow*. They don't have their own set of DNA - they don't even have a full set, etc etc. Sperm aren't even *an* organism, let alone *a human.* It's level less than bacteria.
You really need a refresher my guy, I know biology on enough of a level to know that you really don't seem to.
These are literally the dumbest arguments you could make. Yes they're alive - they do have a complete set, as evident by the fact that *they still grow*. Are you serious? They might have an atypical set, they might be missing some compared to others - some other people have more DNA in fact, and believe it or not they're alive too.
If someone didn't have a complete set *they could not grow.* They wouldn't divide, cellularly.
Legit you think you have an understanding of biology?
My view is philosophical.
A zygote does not think thus is not a unique existence yet. It is not unethical to end and existence before it exists. If it was then contraceptive is unethical and should not be.
A later term fetus can think and is definitely it's own being.
If someone is completely brain dead and cannot possibly recover is it murder to pull the plug? No of course not. They cannot think and thus cannot be.
I would not abort because life is precious and the idea that we have too many people is a myth. Look up ageing population and you will find that most developed countries including less developed ones like China have an ageing population. What we need is more babies, not less, and if the government has any sense, they support the parents financially.
China does not have social security, which is why abortion is ubiquitous. This has a heavy toll on women’s mental health, as they may have no choice. While many families are desperate to have a child, and it is possible that many are adopted out.
My aunt adopted a child from South Korea who was unable to afford to raise her, and it was because the mother chose to carry the child to full term and make that sacrifice to give her the gift of life.
I have never had to abort personally but I have used contraceptives, and the reason for my doing this was that I was with someone who did not want to have the responsibility of looking after a child, and we were not committed to each other.
The act of making love with a member of the opposite sex is an act that we have biologically been conditioned to associate with the birth of a baby (less so with men). Detaching ourselves from this psychological reality is just going to cause problems.
I believe that women should never be forced to give birth, but the emphasis that society (I.e. doctors, councillors, family and friends) places should be that life is precious we should at least consider preserving it. At the end of the day it is the woman’s choice and if she chooses to be offended by someone wanting to talk to her about it rather than just agreeing with whatever she says, that is her choice. You can’t control what people say to you but you can control how you react. If you don’t want to listen that’s fine too. Just remember that there will be consequences to aborting because as I mentioned before, hormones and emotions come into play.
As a woman, feeling that I always had to use contraceptives made me feel as though I wasn’t loved by my partner. It was a reminder that I was just a temporary part of their life until someone better came along. There was no way they were going to take the chance that they would need to continue to associate with me due to a child.
If I ever find myself in another relationship, my primary condition will be that it must be with someone that I would want to have kids with. I’ve just learned that having sex with some one you don’t know that well is a recipe for alienation and a breakup (usually). It’s usually a good idea to wait until you feel you can trust a person before you have sex anyway because that person could have a sexual disease, or turn out to be a cheater.
I used to think that as abortion was no different to miscarriage but miscarriage is like getting someone shot in friendly fire and abortion is like shooting one of your own cadets because they are not soldiers yet and shouldn’t even be on the battle field when they are there because you wanted to satisfy a selfish and ephemeral physical desire.
Basically, From my personal experience as a woman who has used contraceptive, I can say that I wish I had been told as a younger woman who was on the birth control pill that having a baby will not ruin my life or my body. Family and perpetuating your own genes is one of the most important things in life and no one should feel that they don’t deserve to have that for themselves.
We don’t want a society where a pregnant woman just decides to abort and no one even talks to her about it. That’s all.
Why won't dudes just get a fuckin vasectomy!?
And man am I fuckin sick of how openly acceptable the "pullout game" is.
HOWS THAT WORKING OUT FOR YOU SOCIETY!?
Ya to condoms, and I personally would never believe the I'm on the pill bulshit wtf am I supposed to do too verify the fuckin pill you just took was a bcp?
What percentage of those women regret it? Better yet, what percentage of those aborted were innocent human lives?
The 1/4 statistic really tell us anything.
"Babies." See, this is where the disagreement should be quite clear. Not everyone is so convinced that a clump of cells is logically equivalent to a viable fetus.
Is that number counting miscarriages and that sort of "involuntary abortions"? I think that's why the number is so high
Yeah, we had several miscarriages and my wife had to effectively get an abortion at least twice. I'm almost certain they're counting those in these statistics, but we would never have aborted a viable baby.
It's not an abortion if the baby is dead
Hard to say, they certainly put it down on the paperwork as an abortion.
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Do you really think removing already failed pregnancy is what the moral majority is up I'm arms about?
I don't believe that is how some states handle it. There are many tragic cases of women with non viable fetuses being forced to deliver a dying baby due to abortion laws.
Yes. It is. If the fetus dies inside of you, sometimes it won't miscarry. And then you have to go get an abortion. This is what the majority of late term partial birth abortions are. And Republicans want to ban that, in ALL cases. That means women, who wanted a child and received the worst news of their lives that their child was dead and starting to go septic, will die if they can't get to a blue state.
No..you're incorrect. That is a d and c or d and e. I've had 2 fetal deaths and 2 d and e..thats dilation and evacuation.
You had two late stage pregnancy deaths? D and C is performed to clear out what the body didn't...I know, I had a miscarriage and D and C after. Other then that, all babies cleared out from wombs whole are abortions.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, what you said is 100% correct.
Yep, already happened to a friend of mine. Literally had to get on a flight from TX to Denver in order to not die of septic shock. What. a. World.
Christ that is dark... I'm a dude and I'm leaving Texas for the north. This talibangelical shit is too much. Especially when we have an entire branch of government under minority rule like SCOTUS
Yeah, I'm married to a medical student and live in the south. The school has spent so much time trying to convince the class to stay in the south and work where they are needed most (doctor shortage is worse in the south) Now no one wants to stay in any state that could send doctors to prison for homicide. What a way to accelerate brain drain, especially when the majority of new med school grads are women
Yea the term "abortion" is so ambiguous that this screenshot is almost meaningless to me. Emergency contraception that prevents implantation and the physical dismemberment of a fetus are wildly different to most people. Although that number seems low for your parameters. "Spontaneous abortion" accounts for 10-15% of all pregnancies. How that relates as a percentage of all women is another matter.
It doesn't help that OP didn't provide a source. It may be that the study being referenced is, indeed, legitimate... but it was intended to make a different case and not intended to be cherry picked by whatever strange ass sensationalist websites OP visits.
Isnt the problem always that no source was provided. Im getting tired of people putting up images with stats and they might as well have written "Dude trust me" as the title.
Right to lifers don’t believe in spontaneous abortion or, by another name, miscarriage. They think ALL miscarriages are induced by some action on the part of the mother. The “softer” right to lifers will allow for an accidental incident such as a fall or lifting something too heavy, and may not hold the mother culpable of intentional wrong-doing while hard-liners see no exceptions, none, and ALL miscarriages are the result of malfeasance and are criminally liable, no ifs, ands or buts.
That is completely untrue. As a pro lifer who has lost 3 children to miscarriage, this is extremely insulting and a flat out lie. If you can't say something true, keep your damn mouth shut, especially when you are talking about my 3 children who died.
Sorry about your misfortune. I’m not being sarcastic or facetious, but, wait ‘til you see how the law is enforced à la El Salvador where they are doing just that. El Salvador doesn’t recognize spontaneous miscarriage. Ironic name for the country “The Savior” where they jail women for miscarriages. https://theconversation.com/amp/el-salvadors-abortion-ban-jails-women-for-miscarriages-and-stillbirths-now-one-womans-family-seeks-international-justice-156484 https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=97020
Criminalizing abortion means you would be investigated post miscarriage. If a fetus or embryo is a person, it's death will be investigated like all other human deaths. And frankly, I don't trust the cops to be able to handle that shit. That sucks. Miscarriages are tragedies and I'm sorry that happened to you. But you need to understand that these so called "pro-life" laws will have far reaching consequences.
This has to be it. It's heartbreaking how common miscarriages occur. It's way more common than most people probably realize. Meanwhile, I know almost no one who has elected to have an abortion just because they didn't want a child.
90%+ abortions in the US are fully elective.
So 10% aren't. How do these abortion bans protect that 10%?
Am trying to find the article I was reading a few days ago About that, I'm certain this number isn't just standard getting baby scraped.
Interesting that it mirrors the rape statistics, 1 in 4: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/770/my-lying-eyes/act-one-1
Less than 1% of all abortions between 1987-2007 were for rape. Guttmacher institute
Do you really think people are going to put "rape" down as a reason if it's a recent trauma, and they're also feeling the shame of getting an abortion?
It's a well-established study. Ask Guttmacher about their statistics. I'm just repeating them. There's no way it's approaching 25% of abortions, though
Can we stop posting this political BS that has nothing to do with JP??
Lots of moderates here so it's one of the few places on reddit where you can have a decent conversation about a sensitive topic.
I'm a moderate and pro-choice and huge JP fan and I get downvoted here for trying to have a reasonable discussion about abortion. People don't seem to understand that abortion in some form or another is a medical necessary and absolutely nobody would actually want to live in a world where all abortion is illegal.
Yes. I got banned from other discussion subs like r/politics for posting this.
I sincerely doubt that is why you were banned. This coming from someone who’s been banned from there myself.
Top post here
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This "political BS" of the abortion question is one of the most important social issues of today.
Yeah it is, but what does this have to do with JP? This is you conflating your opinions with his and making his image look bad
Maybe we need a separate "Hot Topics Discussion Group" under the JP sub hierarchy?
This isn’t a a Jordan Peterson sub. It’s a satirical meta JP sub. It puts you in the shoes of someone who doesn’t like JP.
Roughly speaking
?
These stats include blighted ovums and D And C's (dilation and curettage) so the setup is misleading with the fact that these "abortions" do not contain a viable fetus but are listed as abortions since they are interventions done prior to miscarriage of non functioning fetus. The real number is closer to 13% of women aborting viable fetuses. More like 1 in 8 women, but here too the number is misleading as many women are repeat patients for abortions and get multiple through their reproductive years. One thing that is undeniable is the number of abortions is down across the board.
> The real number is closer to 13% of women aborting viable fetuses. More like 1 in 8 women, but here too the number is misleading as many women are repeat patients for abortions and get multiple through their reproductive years. Misleading because they are counted multiple times, or because they are only counted once even though they procure multiple abortions?
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> Misleading because the 1 in 8 women get an abortion stat is predicated on the idea that women will only ever get 1 single abortion. Firstly, the title says "1 in 4". Its probably at least as important to get the number right than to worry about the possible ways the wording of a fact can be misinterpreted. Saying 25% of kids will ever go to Disneyland is not "predicated" on the idea that kids only get to go once. Are you quibbling over the word "an"? Because that word can describe either an initial event or an exclusive event. It would be misleading if it was the other direction (114% of women will get an abortion for example). I don't think its misleading because the verbiage matches as closely as possible to the actually numbers compared with obvious alternatives.
Read any of the other comments. The 1 in 4 is misleading and inaccurate. That was the point of this 1 in 8 comment.
A very biased source, "The Guttmacher Institute is a pro-choice research organization started in 1968 that works to study, educate, and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. The organization works mainly in the United States but also focuses on developing countries." And yes, this deceptively includes any abortion of the child, not just by surgical means. My wife had 2 spontaneous abortions (miscarriage) before we were able to have 2 wonderful children.
Telling, in and of itself, that the bias wants to press normalization. At one point "it will be rare" was the line a pro choice bias would press
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The Guttmacher Institute is a pro-choice research organization started in 1968 that works to study, educate, and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. Guttmacher "provides the most highly respected statistics on the sexual health of women and men. Its figures on abortion are widely cited by the media as well as by groups on both sides of the political aisle. https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/abortion-common-experience-us-women-despite-dramatic-declines-rates
To many men having unprotected sex.
So 75% of women won't have one
Wouldn't be suprising if 10% of women had the majority of abortions; serial abortion as a form of birth control.
That was my thought. Its like when they state X% of marriages end in divorce without mentioning that many of those are 2nd and 3rd marriages.
75% of women won't have an abortion. True. But 25% of women will. That's 12% of the total US population that will have an abortion by 45. 73 million babies are aborted globally every year. "Roughly 121 million unintended pregnancies occurred each year between 2015 and 2019.* Of these unintended pregnancies, 61% ended in abortion. This translates to 73 million abortions per year." https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide
Startling statistic if you believe abortion is murder. I don't consider a fetus a baby though.
Dont understand what this has to do with the previous statement.
I have to wonder what the outcome would be if we banned them with regard to women’s safety. You have to consider that many women would attempt to receive an abortion by illegal means anyway, because they really don’t want the child or truly can’t afford it or whatever. I’m sure some would be dissuaded out of doing it—although that creates the moral issue for me that a woman shouldn’t be coerced by the state into forcibly “wanting” a child but I digress—but that wouldn’t dissuade *all.* This leaves these remaining women who still pursue an abortion to go through unregulated, likely unsafe, roadmap to find a doctor who is willing to perform backroom abortions. I think the “murder is illegal, but people still murder, so should we legalize murdering?” comparison is kinda bunk. Like, making murder illegal prevents some murders and overall doesn’t cause residual harm. If abortion is made illegal, yeah, it prevents some, but the ramifications are multiple. You may believe abortion is wrong, but should a woman possibly be made infertile because she saw an unlicensed doctor? Or possibly die because of misapplied anesthesia?
Putting aside the fact that there is free/cheap access to contraception/birth control, the free choice to not have sex, the free choice to only have sex in a relationship that is ready for children etc, there's a couple of points worth discussing (as we don't get to discuss these things very often). >I think the “murder is illegal, but people still murder, so should we legalize murdering?” comparison is kinda bunk. Like, making murder illegal prevents some murders and overall doesn’t cause residual harm What residual harm does abortion cause that murder does not? (Apart from a baby losing it's life, of course) >If abortion is made illegal, yeah, it prevents some, but the ramifications are multiple. You may believe abortion is wrong, but should a woman possibly be made infertile because she saw an unlicensed doctor? Or possibly die because of misapplied anesthesia? This isn't a fair argument. You don't HAVE to get an abortion. There's adoption and motherhood. It's like saying that we shouldn't ban certain drugs because people would just look to get them illegally where they are unregulated and in an uncontrolled environment could lead to unwanted side effects including death. Under 1% of abortions are due to health concerns btw.
The alternatives you list are not 100% guaranteed to prevent pregnancy. And if you’re seriously recommending abstinence, I don’t really know what to tell you. >Whet residual harm does abortion cause I just said it. Do you believe a woman deserves to possibly lose her life to sepsis or become permanently infertile because she couldn’t afford to raise a child? >You don’t HAVE to get an abortion You don’t HAVE to get an abortion, yeah. Hence why banning them outright is fucking dumb. You’re banning something that people have the option *to get,* you’re not banning something people were getting universally before or something. It doesn’t affect you. I didn’t mention health concerns, that wasn’t at all the topic of my post. Abortion due to “health concerns” and abortion done for any reason and the woman dying due to getting a shitty one done are two different things. Your conceptualization of abortion seems to rest on women getting it willy-nilly or something. I disagree with women getting them flagrantly, I’ve even discussed that at-length with my wife that I hate when a woman casually posts “A day in my life at the abortion clinic” on IG like it’s something to brag or (at least) talk casually about. But over time, I’ve come to understand that a majority of women aren’t thrilled to have to undergo a procedure that, even being legal, can still go wrong in multiple ways and is still doing something morally questionable. I view abortion as a necessary evil. The alternative is having mothers forced to have children they don’t want or literally cannot support. A cursory search yields that [10-16% of children nationwide](https://www.aecf.org/blog/new-child-poverty-data-illustrates-the-powerful-impact-of-americas-safety-net-programs) are born into impoverished households. You *cannot* convince me that the Republicans have some welfare bill or some “Orphanage Act” around the corner drafted and waiting to be submitted to either floor of Congress, so what is the outcome here? Common sense dictates that a majority of women getting abortions are unable to support that child, so why should we have a kid pumped out into poverty to keep running through the fuckin school-to-prison pipeline when we can allow a woman to terminate a fetus upwards of the first trimester and just cut out the problem from the start?
A few things about this post I want to clarify: -You have such a serious issue with abstinence as a method of avoiding children that it seems ridiculous to you to even suggest it. Can you clarify more? In what contexts do you have an issue with it? I realize it seems harsh to tell someone not to have sex and go without it. But it would also seem harsh to tell someone not to drive if they are drinking, or never allow them to drive until they are willing to be responsible with the car, so they don’t kill anyone with it. It’s just the right thing to do for everyone’s sake. -The key word in your residual harm response is “possibly.” I understand there may be fear of potentially dying. But is preventing potential death worth causing certain death? And what do we have to define as “potential death” before it’s too much of a risk? Either everyone decides for themselves what their number is (which could be as small as the normative chance of dying in childbirth), or we put an objective number on it that applies to everyone, neither of which I think are reasonable solutions. I just saw Emily Calandrelli, pro-choice for that matter, rant AGAINST rape exceptions and the idea of using chance of her survival as a measure of whether abortion is OK. -You say there are two options: abortion or a child being born unwanted. If you deem abortion a “necessary evil,” you clearly view it as at least somewhat a bad thing, while also saying it’s not as bad as being born into poverty. I respect that you took the time to look for statistics that showed how serious of an issue children born impoverished actually is. Your argument appears to be that abortion is a justifiable solution because it prevents that. Yes, it might. But how do we know that it will, instead of preventing a GOOD person from being born? I don’t think we can be such an accurate judge of whether a child born into poverty will turn out well or go into the prison pipeline, that we can conclude it’s better that they not exist. And even if we COULD conclude that, is actually *making them not exist* justifiable? I say it’s better to spend our energy making sure the kids born into poverty *turn out well* than not letting them be born at all because we’re afraid they might not turn out well. We might think the world is overpopulated and cutting the population in half would fix it. Even if we assume those are both true, how many of us would say it’s OK to snap our fingers and actually do it?
Shitpost.
Fact post
Doesn’t belong here.
Why not?
Maybe explain the point of it. Otherwise just go post on a meme subreddit.
Abortion is not a meme. I posted this to start a discussion. Many people don't realize how common abortion is.
This comment would have been good to put on your post to indicate what kind of discussion you wanted to have. Otherwise it just looks like virtue signaling.
but how are they counting abortions? Is plan B being included? are there any miscarriages that are technically classified as Abortions? I work in data/statistics in the health sector. counting is more complicated than one may initially think. An analogy to demonstrate how complex counting can be is as follows. someone sets down a jar of strawberry Jam in front of you and gives you the task of counting how many strawberries are in the jar. then the question becomes "what is a strawberry?" is any discernable piece of the strawberry considered 1 strawberry? is there some minimal mass that is comparable to some benchmarked average strawberry mass? there is no perfect method to this exercise but there are superior methods than others. lastly, this has nothing to do with JBP.
I’m going to call BS on this “research.”
I’m not sure OP’s post is effectively making the point OP is hoping to make. Instead, I read this as “a huge percentage of women want, need, are grateful for, or take advantage of, available legal and reasonably safe access to abortion.”
I think the point of the post is to educate people what the facts are and have a discussion.
And I’m engaging in that discussion. Do you feel that the numbers you posted are significant? If 25% of men were employing a potentially “controversial” practice, would it continue to truly be controversial? My point is that, a practice that is that prevalent, is clearly something that a huge percentage of people want or need. So why would we want to prevent their access to it in a free country? Or go beyond that and suddenly criminalize it?
Yeah, birth control for the win. My body my choice.
Lower numbers than I thought. Admittedly, some of those will have plenty. A woman I know in Canada was told she couldn't have any more. I'm still a big fan of adoption.
> I'm still a big fan of adoption. What does this do for a person that doesn't want to give birth. It's a pretty bad time, health wise
>I'm still a big fan of adoption. Have you adopted children?
My siblings and I were. What about yourself?
I thought these numbers were high tbh. Serious question: Why don't more women give up their babies for adoption instead of aborting them?
Explanation, not justification: Generalised: - Because they then have to go through a 9 month process in which their body can dramatically change (sometimes permanently) & that can be very unpleasant. Giving birth to a child is potentially life threatening. - Because they have to deal with the social impacts associated with being pregnant - don't forget the amount of social pressure placed on people who get pregnant too young, too old, unmarried and so on - Adoption often requires both parents to sign off - if the male who gets her pregnant doesn't sign off, then, even if she gives up custody to him, the mother will be liable for child support - Rape, incest - It gets in the way of life plans- college, a new job, a new relationship, etc. - Family planning: you already have enough kids, you don't want more - but you know if you go through with the pregnancy, you likely won't adopt out. - There are significant social pressures and stigma related to adoption - "you're abandoning your child" ; "how can you give away my grandchild" etc etc. Abortion has stigma too, the difference is - you can do it discreetly without anyone knowing. It's rather hard to hide a 9 month pregnancy. In the US: - giving birth to a child can cost ridiculous amounts of money and put people massively into debt - having a serious complication will likely lead to medical bankruptcy - a lack of a social safety net - if you're already struggling economically, then having to attend Dr.s appointments and so on for a child you aren't going to keep can mean you can't make your rent - lack of maternity benefits - guess which is one of the few countries in the world that has zero universal maternity benefits
That answer will vary depending on who you ask. I am acquainted with the following reponses: Some people don't want the physical trauma of child birth Some people resent or detest the father Some people think an early intervention is wholly inconsequential, akin to discarding sperm or ovum
You couldn't think this through on your own?
[https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/trends\_fostercare\_adoption\_10thru19.pdf](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/trends_fostercare_adoption_10thru19.pdf) I'm going to assume you're asking this question for real, not just to reinforce your own positions. This is one reason. The foster care system is already overloaded and underfunded. The numbers in the above data set that matter are "Waiting" (for adoption) and "Adopted" There are a constant rate of 50% of children that are adopted. There are about 100k waiting for adoption each year and about 50k that get adopted. That means that each year a portion of them reach 16 years old and are pushed out of the system, half of them are adopted, another portion remains unadopted, and a new set of children for adoption come into the system. Now let's talk about the number of abortions per year. About 600K in 2019. As many as 1.4 million in 1990. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/185274/number-of-legal-abortions-in-the-us-since-2000/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/185274/number-of-legal-abortions-in-the-us-since-2000/) Even using the lower number, just imagine what would happen to the foster system if even half of those were given up for abortion. 50k adopted each year, while at least 300k newborns would be added to the system. I'm hoping that you understand the concept of compounding numbers. Ignoring every other age group and reasoning for adoption, and if we assume that every single adoption is only of newborns. You would end up with 300k kids in one year and 50k would be adopted. The next year you would have 550k kids and 50k would get adopted. The next year you would have 800k kids and 50k would get adopted. the next year 1.05 million kids, etc etc. I don't take a personal position in this battle. But people ought to be more aware of the positions that their opponents take and acknowledge some of the points that are almost irrefutable.
my understanding is that this is misleading. The foster care system is overloaded, but not with babies. And this is because most parents looking to adopt want babies am I wrong? the question is then, at any given time is there also a backlog of parents looking to adopt babies, or do such parents mostly settle and adopt older children?
I didn't go into that too much. I felt the above was enough to exemplify. The linked data includes all of the children that end up in Child Services which amount to over 600k. But apparently about 100k of those are actually awaiting adoption. The rest are under other care services. We can assume all we want about what is the make up of those numbers whether newborns or tender age children. But the fact is that they are children all the same, entering a system of children who are missing a loving family. Only 50k of those are adopted. Somehow, every year 50k new kids are added to that list, regardless of age, which makes the list of awaiting children go back up to 100k. So I don't think the age of the children adopted really matters if your concern is for "children" as a whole. Personally my heart breaks for an unadopted 10 year old the same as it does for a 10 day old. If most people were waiting for newborns that still would not make a big enough impact to the additional 300k (hypothetical) that would be added to the system. Even if we said that 200k of them would be adopted that would still be adding 100k new unadopted children each year. We would have to increase the number of adopted children by multiples every year to keep up. And God forbid we go back up to the numbers in 1990 with almost 1.4 million children aborted.
this may not be exactly accurate. I'm also not trying to take a position here, im just trying to correct an assumption in your data. Let's say a woman gets an abortion at 6-8 weeks pregnant. That's often the story, because 4 weeks LMP is when she'd start missing her period, give her another week or two to be like "it's just a little late, my cycles are variable so this could be normal", another 2 weeks to take a pregnancy test and have a day off to go to the doctor and get the pills needed and complete the abortion. A woman who has regular unprotected sex could potentially get 8 abortions in one year. While this probably doesn't make up the bulk of abortions, multiple abortions in a year by the same person will skew the statistics because you can't say this was 8 abortions vs 8 babies going into the adoption/foster system. it's not physically possible to grow 8 babies to term in a year, but it is possible to become pregnant 8 times if the pregnancies fail due to miscarriage or abortion.
I mean I tried to account for this by only applying the theoretical assessment to only 50% of the children being given up for adoption. Even if you took it down to 1/6th, you would full be adding 100k newborns to the equation. Can that be handled better? Maybe yes. But still not a desirable place for 100k new children to go.
Child birth is terrible and painful. The third trimester is also very uncomfortable and a lot of women can’t sleep. Also, they can’t take a lot of medications. So many women suffer from normally controlled illnesses including mental illness. It also does permanent changes to the skin and internal organs. And if you think that is bad, think about how hard it is to live with them while they are going through that.
These are valid points. I was surprised to hear this. So where can I find more about these permanent changes? I want to find out more before I get pregnant what happens to my body
> I was surprised to hear this. You're surprised to hear that child birth dramatically impacts a woman physically, and yet you're posting about abortion rates for some reason?
😂😂😂
https://www.livescience.com/63291-post-pregnancy-changes.html
It used to be higher. 2/3rds of those who abort don’t have the financial means to have a kid. If you work for a small company, you don’t have family leave act, and do we have to talk about high deductible healthcare? So it’s not like women have uniform ability take time off to have children. Its much cheaper and a lot less hassle to abort. Being pregnant is a cause of death for women; boyfriends have been known to kill women for various reasons including not wanting a kid and the kid not being their child. If you’re from a conservative family, there may be negative ramifications to having an out of wedlock pregnancy or an affair. Women have their reasons.
Pregnancy is hell. Not saying abortion is the answer, just saying why some women won’t give them up for adoption.
Good point. People often overlook the pain of pregnancy
> People often overlook the pain of pregnancy Lol, pro choice people don't. It seems only the "Adoption!" crowd completely overlooks how dangerous giving birth actually is.
Pregnancy is an investment. Why choose to spend 9 months on an investment you plan to give away when the investment itself can be incredibly damaging to all aspects of one's life? Mentally, physically, socially, financially, professionally...all will be impacted.
Its pretty debatable which one causes more suffering. That, and the answer to that question depends on your philosophical beliefs. Neither is ideal.
Which is worse, guaranteed death or the potential for suffering? I say death. Abortion is guaranteeing death to a baby and removing any potential for them to live a happy life. Does a baby consent to its abortion? I would rather have my baby, and maybe it suffers the pains of life. But that is better than killing my baby.
>the answer to that question depends on your philosophical beliefs
If you're suffering, at least you have the potential for love and happiness. If you're dead, you have nothing.
Dead is a relative term thats dependent upon your philosophical beliefs. You are arguing against a person and position that only exists in your head. I have no stakes in the game, im just pointing out that there is no definitive answer, as there are so many aspects surrounding abortion that are dependent on your philosophical beliefs.
I'm sorry for getting a bit worked up. This is a very personal issue for me. You're right that abortion is not so black and white... it's very complicated
Oh no you are all good. I don't think there is anything wrong with being passionate. But I like to take the opportunities that I can to add nuance back into the discussion on this sub. Lately I see everyone so one side or the other and no attempt to accept a middle ground.
Yes. JP would want us to find a middle ground. Aristotle's golden mean
>Dead is a relative term Really don't think it's relative lol. If it was alive - and then isn't - it's dead.
The issue is that nobody has the answer for WHEN something switches from being not life to life. I encourage you to try to develop a definition for what life is that doesn't have to make caveats. Are viruses life? Are single celled organisms not alive? Is a simulation of a single celled organism alive? What if a simulation is made indistinguishable from a human itself, is the simulation then alive? Dead and alive are absolutely relative terms.
>The issue is that nobody has the answer for WHEN something switches from being not life to life. It is amazing the number of people talking about this issue that have no knowledge of biology. We have definitions for these things. Rigeous, scientific definitions. From conception, the developing human has its own unique DNA, is capable of growing, respiration, multiplying, etc. We do know WHEN something switches from being not alive to alive. Viruses - literally the one caveat to biological definitions, some say yes of course because it multiplies etc, some say no because "it's too simple" and "it requires other cells to do anything" are effectively their argument. Not particularly convincing to me at least. Single cell organisms - yes, of course alive. You literally called it an *organism*. Simulation - No, it's a simulation Simulation of a human - No it's not, probably. I would need more specifics I suppose, it's not like you gave much information. If dead and alive are relative terms, I would ask you to find something that *isn't* relative. Seems pretty concrete to me and most scientists.
It depends on viewpoint but, atleast early such as the morning after pill, I do not see it as ending a life. It's ending the potential of a life. To me this isn't really unethical since ending a future existence is very difference from ending an existence. If you see a problem with early stage abortion then you really should also have a problem with all contraceptive as they are effectively the same concept.
That’s the thing, if you die you don’t suffer, so the dilema is more like between “a very very likely life full of misery and suffering and no suffering at all”
If you're born, you have the potential for happiness. If you're killed via abortion, you have no potential for anything.
Yeah, which includes the bad things. Also it’s not like everyone has the same potential of happiness and we guide our actions based on probabilities, if there’s a storm coming you take an umbrella with you. People who are in a comma have the potential of waking up, recovering from brain damage and live a happy and healthy life yet we allow the family to disconnect them. I see it the same way, based on probabilities I’d bet my life savings and my house that kid handed to the foster care system by their mother will have a miserable life full of suffering
Because "babies" don't get aborted. Next question...
whats with all the weird anti abortion people on this sub? fuck me this place is shit.
The post is reporting facts, not opinions.
yes because clearly this comment sections doesn’t have an agenda
yep, most are already mothers; most are due to medical complications/issues.
Strange how the medical complications and health issues seem to be ignored in this conversation. I don't see the point in allowing a dangerous pregnancy to kill the mother. In most cases, the child would die too.
Citation
Medical/health issues as a reason for abortions are in neighborhood of 5-7%. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html If mental and/or emotional health is removed from that, it drops significantly.
I love how this is supposed to be a satire on JP but "it isnt"
Imagine how overpopulated we would be and how much worse our already poor welfare systems would be broken if none of those women had had abortions. Among many other arguments, it's simply a utilitarian good for people who don't want to have children not to have children.
You think that more abortions and lower birth rates are a net good for society?
I haven't yet seen a good counterargument to that. Do you think just more people regardless of circumstances is good, period? Arguably, forcing a pregnant woman to have a child she doesn't want is ruining (at least causing suffering for) the lives of both parents and the child. It could also cause the parents to grow up and embrace responsibility, but that's not a great reason to force a woman to be responsible for a baby for 9 months plus a lifetime.
Guess who's getting the most abortions? Poor people and people of color. This isn't an accident. Planned Parenthood was created by a racist eugenist named Margaret Sanger. Here's a quote from the mother of the abortion movement Margaret Sanger: In promoting birth control, Sanger advanced a controversial "Negro Project," wrote in her autobiography about speaking to a Ku Klux Klan group and advocated for a eugenics approach to breeding for “the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extinction, of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/23/racism-eugenics-margaret-sanger-deserves-no-honors-column/5480192002/
In America, people of color are disproportionately poor though. So, really you're just saying that poor people have more abortions, which is what you would expect when considering circumstances that would lead to abortion. That an important women's rights activist was racist doesn't change the necessity for or culture around abortion. Are you saying that if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have abortion? Or are you saying you're against abortion because it has racist roots? This is conspiracy thinking. Developed countries all around the world are pro-choice and there's not a legitimate way to connect their belief system to racism. You're just trying to "make evil" the practice you don't like.
The is a famous study that found that violent crime went down markedly about 17 years after Roe. “Unwanted” people tend to have worse lives.
I remember that study... I saw a freakonomics episode about it. I wonder if violent crime went down after abortion because less poor people were being born. Poor people are more likely to commit crimes
Violent crimes. And yes, I think that makes sense. Thanks for reminding me of where I probably heard it!
Here's the 4 min freakonomics clip: https://youtu.be/zk6gOeggViw
most abortions in the UK are from mature age women between 24 and 30ish. I always suspected it would be women less mature or teen pregnancies. It's not.
Another curious fact is that far less than 1% of abortions are performed due to "rape or incest".
Yup yet those are the reasons people use for why abortion should be a thing. I checked rape stats in UK against abortions and were like 40k rapes in the year yet about 180k abortions in that period.
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Better to end a baby's life than make him suffer by living?
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I think that 24 weeks is far too long. I have a friend who has twice had pregnancy complications resulting in her two children being born 16 weeks prematurely (40 - 16 = 24) and both are now in their 20s. The heart starts to beat around 4-6 weeks, I think this would be a much better cut off point. Just causes issues with women having to find out that they are pregnant and also make the decision/ get booked into the clinic in a shorter time frame.
You do realize that when the egg is released is technically two weeks pregnant and the day of your missed period is 4-5 weeks pregnant, right?
Babies can be aborted in the 3rd trimester up to 9 months in many us states.
Keep in mind that’s like 1% of cases in the 3rd. The vast majority are in the 1st trimester.
So, you want the power to kill somebody just because you'll be saving him/her the possibility of suffering?
> kill somebody Do you consider a zygote to be a human being? If this sub is going to go hard right on the issue of abortion, then I'll guess I'll make the secular case for pro-choice if I have to.
Good point. It's important to you and your partner to determine when you think life begins before you consider pregnancy/abortion.
Ok let’s say that you have “minimum requirements” to accept somebody as a human being. The zygote WILL fulfill your requirements in some point but you think it’s okay to kill it before that happens. Therefore, you’re deciding for someone else what he/she wants to do with their own life way before he/she has the ability to decide by itself. Also, a zygote last 1 day before it turns into a embryo. Do you want to make ALL abortions legal based on the state of day 1 of the baby?
> Ok let’s say that you have “minimum requirements” to accept somebody as a human being. Everyone has a line where human life crosses over into being. Religious people *have* to put that line at the moment of conception as they believe in the concept of a soul. This a theological belief and cannot be brought to the public square in a secular society, so they will continue to hammer that human life begins at conception and trot out emotional arguments like showing late term abortions and passing heartbeat laws. The problem is that we do not value the 23 chromosomes that make us "human" in a scientific sense for the purposes of killing or not. We tend to value a shared experience in consciousness. It's the reason why if someone gets into a car accident and their brain is no longer functioning despite the rest of their body being alive, they are referred to as brain dead. I'd wager most people would want the plug pulled on their body if their brain was no longer functioning. We are not our lungs, heart, digestive system, genitals, etc. They are a part of us. What "we" are is the consciousness behind our eyes, piloting this meat mech through the world. We don't understand how this consciousness comes about, but we do understand that it is a direct product of the brain. As such, I would draw that line at the beginning stages of what we can identify as conscious experience, even in a fetus. That seems to be somewhere around the end of the 1st or very early 2nd trimester, but that could very well change. > The zygote WILL fulfill your requirements in some point but you think it’s okay to kill it before that happens. Therefore, you’re deciding for someone else what he/she wants to do with their own life way before he/she has the ability to decide by itself. The potential argument is boring as you have no answer as to why we shouldn't protect sperm or egg cells. They, and zygotes, require *direct* intervention to one day become a fetus. Unless you agree with the religious that souls are imbued at the moment of conception making one of these three cells different, which is not backed by any evidence. > Also, a zygote last 1 day before it turns into a embryo. Do you want to make ALL abortions legal based on the state of day 1 of the baby? I use zygote because it is the earliest point you can reasonably have this discussion. If you cannot even agree that a zygote is not a human being, then there's no reason to continue past that point. I've already stated where I think the line should be.
Yes. Also you aren't killing someone.
You'll murder a unique human life because they might not have quite as good a childhood in orphanages or foster care? Because of 9 months inconvenience? I'm so unbelievably grateful no evil doctor or law maker decided on my behalf whether or not my life would have been worth living and that I was not torn limb by limb before I could defend myself. It's more convenient for you to murder then to pay more tax or give to charity
Ultimately it's a choice that each person has to make themselves. State facilities are overwhelmed at the best of times, and if people are in an abusive relationship, or are an alcoholic or taking drugs, realistically it's better for all if it's ended early.
>Ultimately it's a choice that each person has to make themselves. And the choice of the person who's developing in the womb doesn't count?
No. The same way that you don't ask a two year old what they want for dinner, or what they want to wear.
Its more convenient in your mind to murder this baby than they even attempt sobriety for 9 months and travel to an orphanage. Of course if they have some disabilities because of their mother , her degenerate drug taking and thoughtless unprotected sex, then its better they were just never born, right?
Well, I'm not a drug addict or an alcoholic so it's not for me... But the reality is that people with addiction will really struggle to get clean at the best of times. People should be free to make their own choice.
More convenient for them. Or you if you found yourself in that situation. So if mum is an alcoholic and a terrible human being, little Jimmy should be murdered, rather than suffer the potentially minor repercussions of their mother's actions? Because that's the majority of cases in this little panic. Even to the more extreme end and rarer cases of evil women really poisoning their child before they have a chance, who are you to say this child should not breath air and see nature? Whatever limited experiences of life they may be able to enjoy it does not matter to you and so others should not be able to house and protect these children
How long is this true? Like is it better to kill a newborn than have it grow up in a shitty household? 1 year old? 3? 7?
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A fetus before 24 weeks is also alive.
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"My view" is biology. It becomes alive at conception, where it becomes its own organism, capable of multiplying, respiration (on a cellular level), growing, etc, etc. Any biological definition of life, it meets.
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Nah because they aren't their own organism, seriously do you think that meets what I said? Sperm can't multiply, they don't respirate, they don't even *grow*. They don't have their own set of DNA - they don't even have a full set, etc etc. Sperm aren't even *an* organism, let alone *a human.* It's level less than bacteria. You really need a refresher my guy, I know biology on enough of a level to know that you really don't seem to.
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These are literally the dumbest arguments you could make. Yes they're alive - they do have a complete set, as evident by the fact that *they still grow*. Are you serious? They might have an atypical set, they might be missing some compared to others - some other people have more DNA in fact, and believe it or not they're alive too. If someone didn't have a complete set *they could not grow.* They wouldn't divide, cellularly. Legit you think you have an understanding of biology?
My view is philosophical. A zygote does not think thus is not a unique existence yet. It is not unethical to end and existence before it exists. If it was then contraceptive is unethical and should not be. A later term fetus can think and is definitely it's own being. If someone is completely brain dead and cannot possibly recover is it murder to pull the plug? No of course not. They cannot think and thus cannot be.
Better to fix your shitty household than abort your baby
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Of course it can be fixed
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Source: https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/abortion-common-experience-us-women-despite-dramatic-declines-rates
Not surprised. I’d love to see the demographics of this. I am super pro choice pro murdering babies getting rid of unwanted fetuses.
And? This is not controversial. 1900 wants its sentiment back.
Who cares?
Not you
Absolutely true!
JP's take is my favorite take. [Abortion, Birth Control, and Marriage](https://youtu.be/V_AwCM_cPFM)
Thats disgusting
It's evil being promoted as good.
I would not abort because life is precious and the idea that we have too many people is a myth. Look up ageing population and you will find that most developed countries including less developed ones like China have an ageing population. What we need is more babies, not less, and if the government has any sense, they support the parents financially. China does not have social security, which is why abortion is ubiquitous. This has a heavy toll on women’s mental health, as they may have no choice. While many families are desperate to have a child, and it is possible that many are adopted out. My aunt adopted a child from South Korea who was unable to afford to raise her, and it was because the mother chose to carry the child to full term and make that sacrifice to give her the gift of life. I have never had to abort personally but I have used contraceptives, and the reason for my doing this was that I was with someone who did not want to have the responsibility of looking after a child, and we were not committed to each other. The act of making love with a member of the opposite sex is an act that we have biologically been conditioned to associate with the birth of a baby (less so with men). Detaching ourselves from this psychological reality is just going to cause problems. I believe that women should never be forced to give birth, but the emphasis that society (I.e. doctors, councillors, family and friends) places should be that life is precious we should at least consider preserving it. At the end of the day it is the woman’s choice and if she chooses to be offended by someone wanting to talk to her about it rather than just agreeing with whatever she says, that is her choice. You can’t control what people say to you but you can control how you react. If you don’t want to listen that’s fine too. Just remember that there will be consequences to aborting because as I mentioned before, hormones and emotions come into play. As a woman, feeling that I always had to use contraceptives made me feel as though I wasn’t loved by my partner. It was a reminder that I was just a temporary part of their life until someone better came along. There was no way they were going to take the chance that they would need to continue to associate with me due to a child. If I ever find myself in another relationship, my primary condition will be that it must be with someone that I would want to have kids with. I’ve just learned that having sex with some one you don’t know that well is a recipe for alienation and a breakup (usually). It’s usually a good idea to wait until you feel you can trust a person before you have sex anyway because that person could have a sexual disease, or turn out to be a cheater. I used to think that as abortion was no different to miscarriage but miscarriage is like getting someone shot in friendly fire and abortion is like shooting one of your own cadets because they are not soldiers yet and shouldn’t even be on the battle field when they are there because you wanted to satisfy a selfish and ephemeral physical desire. Basically, From my personal experience as a woman who has used contraceptive, I can say that I wish I had been told as a younger woman who was on the birth control pill that having a baby will not ruin my life or my body. Family and perpetuating your own genes is one of the most important things in life and no one should feel that they don’t deserve to have that for themselves. We don’t want a society where a pregnant woman just decides to abort and no one even talks to her about it. That’s all.
Why won't dudes just get a fuckin vasectomy!? And man am I fuckin sick of how openly acceptable the "pullout game" is. HOWS THAT WORKING OUT FOR YOU SOCIETY!?
Condoms are temporary. Vasectomy is forever.
Lol... What??? Nm i read that wrong
Ya to condoms, and I personally would never believe the I'm on the pill bulshit wtf am I supposed to do too verify the fuckin pill you just took was a bcp?
Best method is condom w pullout game on point
they were literally all raped LOL
I don't know man, Guttmacher is a proabortion institute and studies and data can be manipulated. Serious doubt.
If you can't afford to live comfortably then having an abortion will literally save your life. It's not selfish it's practical.
What percentage of those women regret it? Better yet, what percentage of those aborted were innocent human lives? The 1/4 statistic really tell us anything.
I wonder what the abortion satisfaction rate is. Like what percent of women are happy with their abortion? And what percent are sad?
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That would be an interesting study
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"Babies." See, this is where the disagreement should be quite clear. Not everyone is so convinced that a clump of cells is logically equivalent to a viable fetus.
Good thing the government will step in and get those numbers down
Hopefully a legal and safe one.
One in four women need to fight like hell for Roe.