everlastingtongue

I’ve read the various abortion threads and seen any number of moral arguments against abortion.

What I’m looking for is a practical pro-life argument. How can abortion really be stopped?

Suppose that there was a nationwide abortion ban in the U.S. I would expect two things to occur:

1. A black-market for abortion would be created. Since this black-market would be entirely unregulated, the health risks would be enormous.

2. The ban would only affect the poor. Anyone with the means could simply travel to another nation, where abortion is legal, and have the abortion performed.

Surely an abortion ban isn’t the answer to stopping abortion. So what is it that pro-lifers advocate? Is there a practical solution that I’m not aware of?

The Other Michael

I suspect this may lead to a discussion more appropriate to PD (practical implementation of some policy) but we'll leave it here for a bit to see if it can stay in MF&P.

cheers,
Michael
MF&P Moderator (Maximus)

nermal

I don't think a ban is the answer, and I'm a pro lifer. I can't fathom sending a woman to prison for murder for getting an abortion, nor sending a doctor to prison for providing one.
I think the answer is to change the way people think about pregnancy, particularly where single women and teen girls are involved.
While teenage pregnancy shouldn't be encouraged, young women who are pregnant in difficult circumstances should be made to feel welcome, comforted, and cared about. They should definitely not feel ostracized. Adoption should be encouraged, and talked openly about throughout the pregnancy, and every effort should be made to provide proper prenatal care, counceling, and family assistance to the pregnant patient.
Perhaps, over reasonable time, if women who would otherwise opt for abortion are nurtured and not made to feel stupid or second class, the abortion rate would diminish naturally, until only women in the most extreme cases (rape, incest, health problems) would opt for abortion.

In other words, I think the answer is to change hearts, not laws.

Ed

Jennie

The best way to reduce abortion rates would be to have a safe, reliably reversible sterilization procedure. Next best is sex education and good contraception easily available to all, including teens. No new thoughts here, I'm afraid.

Daleth

I've got to agree with nermal and Jennie. To add some of my own thoughts to nermal's "change hearts, not laws" comment, I think one step we need to take (and an unlikely one, sadly) is to do away with the deification of motherhood.

Motherhood is held up as this holy standard. There is an assumption of some maternal instinct in all women, and it's a myth. When a woman kills her own child it is seem as the worst of crimes, worse by far than a father killing his own child, because she was supposed to have this instinct. Women who don't like babies are seen by the majority as somehow sick. Women who don't want children "will someday" and if they never do they are cold.

And therefore women who give their babies up for adoption are abandoning their children, lack what's considered a basic instinct, and are sick. It's easier for them to have an abortion. It's actually less stigmatized. We need to make it easier for women to choose adoption, changing hearts as nermal said.

This wouldn't solve things, obviously, because although there are adoptive homes for lots of infants (so many don't want to adopt older kids) there are not enough adoptive homes for all that would otherwise be aborted. But I think it's important. I've known women (well, girls) who had abortions because they'd feel criminal if they had their baby adopted.

Dal

Ab_Normal

I think universal, fact based sex ed, starting before the hormonal storms of adolescence, would go a long way toward reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Loren Pechtel

So? Then you wouldn't have so many bad examples to point to. It would be harder to pull the wool over their eyes about sex. The power of the church is diminshed, as they are no longer the only acceptable way to have sex.

Terrible idea!

Carolina

All you said is true. Many countries in South America (including Brazil, where I live) don't allow abortin, except if the pregnant woman has risk of life or if the pregnancy was a result of a rape. This law is a result of lack of laicism of many of the countries. The Catholic Church much has indirectly intervained in the 19th century, and it seems that this tradition is not over, but surely it is weakened.

I am still surprised after all those conservative republicans such as Regan, Bush & Bush Jr. abortion is still legal here in the USA. Hopefully, this won't change.

There is no immediate solution to stop abortions; by the way, there is still a lot of controversy whether it is right or not. But I strongly advocate for those who think abortion is not imoral, have the right to do so.

Comparing Brazil to USA, I can notice that many girls don't have any idea how to prevent a pregnancy. We strongly emphasize in school and many governamental and non-governamental campaingns that teenagers must use condoms and take the pills.

The biggest mistake in Amreica, I think, is to encourage abstinency. But we know, that as time goes by, this utopia is getting very obsolete. So the best way to prevent all these early pregnancies is giving a stronger sexual education.

Daleth

Ditto again to what other posters have added. It's funny... In the "Is abortion moral" threads, the absolute pro-lifers can go on and on and on. Whenever they're asked for a practical solution, they don't answer, and none of them have posted to this thread.

The most practical solution is what Ab_Normal said... early and continuing education (not that hit-n-run semester of sex ed. we got in 7th grade), but even that couldn't be fully successful. Accidents would still happen because no BC is 100%. Rapes would still happen.

There's not going to be a complete solution, so women still need to have that choice. All we can do is work on reducing the number who need to make the choice at all and make the other options less difficult.

fundamental spawn

I like Plato's suggestions.

The state needs to get involved. Good genes should be matched with good genes. Some should not mate at all and be sterilized. You're always going to have abortion - and reproductive misery - when the process is allowed to burn out of control.

We manage transportation, information, production, healthcare (sort of) ...... surely we can manage the reproductive future of the race.