My wife’s childhood best friend got pregnant with a guy she was seeing and got an abortion. They actually went on to get married. Not surprisingly their marriage lasted ~4 years… she would have been an awful mother, all are better off that the pregnancy ended early.
I would attribute this as a significant cause of the decrease of abortions since the mid-80’s far more than the “success” of legalized abortion.
This does make me wonder . . .
I don’t recall seeing any pregnant girls in high school which makes me think that a lot of girls in my high school likely got abortions
Same. No one in my high school had a baby. I do know some people who chose to keep the college baby.
Me neither. I grew up in an affluent area, so pretty sure abortions were easy enough.
But also pretty sure girls more likely to be on the pill early and guys could afford condoms
I would agree with that. Just because people (don’t) want something doesn’t affect the morality of it. And the court is demonstrably not above politics; we need look no further than Plessy v Ferguson which had a comfortable 7-1 majority on the wrong side.
That said it’s interesting to consider what would have happened had the court found in Plessy’s favor back in 1896. What would the 20th century have looked like with no Jim Crow laws? When would baseball and the military have desegregated?
That’d be a good candidate for the “alternate history” thread.
Anyway, I think it’s fair to say that the threshold for convincing people that something is ok varies based on what we’re talking about.
I think in the 1970s and even into the 80s a lot of people really did think that by 49 years after Roe that abortion would be a non-issue. Yet here we are.
1 Like
Agree completely. Well not just Medicaid, but the whole package. Much less stigma, financial support and medical care, child care, all of it.
Uh, you’re agreeing with yourself and a misunderstanding of lucy. I believe she meant that legal abortion being so safe is why it is no longer considered a major right.
Anyway, I think most people would say that ubiquitous contraception was the main thing to reduce the abortion rate in the 80s. This should be easy to find statistics on.
Except, that minority is rushing to take power and never, ever let it go. Even when you try and pry it from their cold, dead hands.
(I fixed your quote tags – they need to be alone on a row.)
1 Like
I was agreeing with VA. And I understand Lucy and agree with some of what she wrote, but not all of it.
Like, it’s basically indisputable that legalization made abortions a lot safer. Legal abortions are safer than pregnancy, even, but illegal abortions were quite risky.
But I disagree with her that legalizing abortion led to fewer abortions. I think other factors led to fewer abortions. The correlation is there, but the causation is not, IMO.
The other far out provision of the bill is that it explicitly tells prosecutors to ignore Roe and Casey and …
E.(1) Any federal statute, regulation, treaty, executive order, or court ruling
11 that purports to supersede, stay, or overrule this Section shall be in violation of the
12 United States Constitution and the Constitution of Louisiana and is therefore void.
13 (2) This state and its political subdivisions, and agents thereof, may disregard
14 any part or whole of any federal court decision which purports to enjoin or void any
15 provision of this Section.
16 F. Pursuant to the powers granted to the Legislature by Article X, Part III,
17 of the Constitution of Louisiana, any judge of this state who purports to enjoin, stay,
18 overrule, or void any provision of this Section shall be subject to impeachment or
19 removal.
https://legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1276214
https://legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=242732
How can they do that? Here’s the crack legal reasoning:
“If more than 15 states can defy the federal government over marijuana, we can do it to save the lives of innocent babies,” McCormick said, adding Louisiana should not wait until the Supreme Court’s ruling is made official.
Relative abortion rates by country are revealing. US one of the highest among first world countries.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/abortion-rates-by-country
Ah yeah, I agree there.
1 Like
To be fair (to her? to you?) the correlation is significant in that legalized abortion, accepting out-of-wedlock marriage, sex-ed, and ubiquitous contraception… are all sort of a part of the same political movement.
Yeah, that’s true too.
1 Like
I think if this were the case, birth rates would have risen at some point. Hard to say… could use more data here…
Naw, disagree. Contraception means there are a lot fewer unwanted pregnancies. And women working becoming normal means that women have a purpose beyond motherhood and desire fewer kids than in the past.
pregnancy is quite risky – that’s a low bar. Like covid, you need to take into account the long-term side effects, as well as the immediate mortality. Pregnancy often triggers diabetes, which doesn’t always resolve after the birth. It greatly increases the odds of an autoimmune disorder (probably because it’s an immune reaction to leftover fetal cells that can grow in random places in the body.) It does reduce the odds of breast cancer a little, but overall it’s a net decrease to expected lifetime. Ever priced a pension plan for nuns? A friend did, they needed their own mortality chart.
(Nuns also don’t have to worry where their next meal is coming from, so that’s probably an overestimate of the cost of pregnancy…)
And then there are all the little, non-fatal things. I have an annoying thing going in a stretch mark right now. Basically all pregnant women develop hemorrhoids. I’ve had acid reflux problems (which has led to a pre-cancerous condition) ever since being pregnant.
Women shouldn’t have to carry a baby unless they want to.
1 Like
I guess I just mean, if it was mostly about society accepting more births, then births would have risen a bunch. Instead the birth rate has been mostly constant since 1975, suggesting that the drop in abortion rate is more about preventing unwanted pregnancy than wanting more pregnancies.
But yes, there’s confounding variables. Guess I should find better data.