I'm in a bítchy mood tonight due to all the incessant arguing going on in the multiple abortion threads. Let's face it. Either way, illegal or not, our country will not agree on abortion anytime soon. Therefore, I think we need to find a way to decrease the want/need for abortion. That is what this thread is about. Ways to reduce the need for abortion. I myself think it involves going to the root of the problem.

Here are some ideas about what we need to do. (Sorry if it's repetitive. I'm copying and pasting from another thread.)

1. We work on getting rid of unwanted pregnancies. (No one give me: 'Teach abstinence only cause we all know that in some societies, that mindset is a bunch of bull.)

2. We work on reducing the need for abortion among people.

3. We make Birth control easily accessible. (Cause we all know people WILL have sex, no matter what you say to them)

4. We find homes for all the children waiting to be adopted.

5. Make sure that if there IS a need for Children's Homes, they are ALL exceptional in cleanliness and love, among other things.

So. Any other ideas/suggestions/etc.

If ANYONE turns this into an "abortion is wrong thread here's why" or "abortion should be acceptable here's why" thread, and the attempt to find a way to reduce abortion turns into another incessant abortion argument, I will do one of 4 things.
1. Kill the thread.
2. Get someone else to kill it.
3. Ask the mods to delete it.
4. Ask the mods to delete any post that argues abortion.

THIS WILL NOT BECOME ANOTHER SEEMINGLY ENDLESS ABORTION DEBATE, SO HELP ME GOD! THERE ARE ENOUGH OF THOSE!

You have been warned.

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No i have not, is it worth it_? If so I'll download.

It's pretty amazing. It's about a society that is sterile and at war.

No i have not, is it worth it_? If so I'll download.

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As long as the world is so screwed up I believe we should stop procreating, I think it is disrespectfull for us to keep bringing children into such a shitty world.

Instead of trying to figure out what we can do about unborn kids, we should try to solve things for the millions of them that are allready breathing and are having a hard time.

That's pretty much my thought process for when I argue for abortion.

This thread was only started as an attempt to get people to stop arguing a senseless argument and try to come together to find a compromise.

Random semi-off topic question: Have you seen Children of Men?

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Question for you: Do you have any ideas on what would and would not work?

Yes I do have one very important idea, but I doubt you would accept it.

Complete cultural change.

In current western culture our values are incompatible with a productive adoption policy. We have an apreciation of violence and suffering that is completely alienated from reality. Violence is that stuff that you see on TV, not what goes on in the world around you. Suffering in Darfur is a post with a youtube video on a website, not an actual child getting his brains blown all over the sand with an ak47.
We are not senseless, but out culture has broken the boundary between reality and fiction, and many of us are no longer able to discern it.
I myself have never traveled to an extremely enpoverished region, but I have many friednss that have been to india, and they have all told me the same. There is nothing you can see on TV, in books, or the internet, that can prepare you for the emotional impact soo much poverty will have on you. They all told me that the prevailing feeling that they all felt when they were in the city's was depression. There is no way normal people can cope with so much suffering.
We view the suffering of others as a cause worth fighting for, suffering is not a cause, suffering is real, and right this instant there are thousands of people that are in such incredibly deep shit that many fo them are probably questioning if it was worth being born.

As long as the world is so screwed up I believe we should stop procreating, I think it is disrespectfull for us to keep bringing children into such a shitty world.

Instead of trying to figure out what we can do about unborn kids, we should try to solve things for the millions of them that are allready breathing and are having a hard time.

Note that was incredibly idealistic coming from me. And regardless of how nice the concept is, none of us is going to come close to solving the problem without first quetioning everything that is absolute to us. Nationality would be a good start. Being Spanish or American means nothing to me.. The only difference between many of us is the food we eat and the miles between us. As long as nationality is a prevailing concept we will inevitably be alienated from others, and thus we will never be able to truly comprehend their suffering, identify with it, and ultimately work to make it dissapear.

I'll start an independent post on this subject when I feel up for writing it. There's a lot more depth to it than what I here expose.

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The thing is, can you get rid of diseases? No, they're unwanted, thus we don't choose to have them. The only way to not have unwanted pregnancies is total abstinence. Like clpo pointed out below, no contraceptive is 100% effective.

But who's to say that we can't teach the risks associated with birth control and their failure rates in an attempt to at least reduce unwanted pregnancies? They'll never be completely resolved, but if more people know how to have safer sex, there is a chance that there will be less.

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This derivates directly from the above question. What you're saying is that if women do become pregnant they shouldn't abort? the only case when one needs to abort is when one is pregnant, thus saying we need to reduce the need for abortions equates to being anti abortionist. Well veiled.

No, what I was saying is we get better contraception information out there, we improve women's health care, we make day care readily acceptable, we do a number of things to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and to also help women who don't want to abort but feel forced to to feel that they have other options. There will always be unwanted pregnancies, and women who'd rather abort than anything else, but if we can help those who don't want to abort but have no other option, then that's a start.

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This one is actually good, but to tell the truth, if kids don't have condoms it's because they're to embarrassed to buy them.

Then what about trying to get rid of the stigmatism of sex and make it less taboo?

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Yeah, it would be great, but it's utopian at least. Getting in to this involves talking cultural and sociological issues and that would carry the debate far from it's intended direction.

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Same as above, it's impossible. It's like trying to make people recycle their garbage, you have to influence one's moral base for him to make changes on his lifestyle. Not factible.

It may be utopian, and it may be an ideal, but it's just an idea.

The whole purpose of this thread is to try and brainstorm ideas to do many different things that are all interconnected. I'm not saying any of my ideas would work, they were just some things I would have liked to see happen in our society.

Question for you: Do you have any ideas on what would and would not work?

Philly's district has come up with a fascinating solution. In health classes, they skip sex ed entirely. Then, once a year, they test everyone for chlamydia.

This is a response to Ikki's original post, I'm not going to continue the debate because everything has been said countless times before.

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1. We work on getting rid of unwanted pregnancies.

The thing is, can you get rid of diseases? No, they're unwanted, thus we don't choose to have them. The only way to not have unwanted pregnancies is total abstinence. Like clpo pointed out below, no contraceptive is 100% effective.

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2. We work on reducing the need for abortion among people.

This derivates directly from the above question. What you're saying is that if women do become pregnant they shouldn't abort? the only case when one needs to abort is when one is pregnant, thus saying we need to reduce the need for abortions equates to being anti abortionist. Well veiled.

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We make Birth control easily accessible. (Cause we all know people WILL have sex, no matter what you say to them)

This one is actually good, but to tell the truth, if kids don't have condoms it's because they're to embarassed to buy them. You can find condoms almost everywhere now a days. the pill is a different story, and the hormonal changes it causes in women can lead to mood change, thus it's only preferable for relatively stable couples that know they're going to really make use of the protection it provides(wich incidentally is much better than that of condoms)

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We find homes for all the children waiting to be adopted..

Yeah, it would be great, but it's utopian at least. Getting in to this involves talking cultural and sociological issues and that would carry the debate far from it's intended direction.

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Make sure that if there IS a need for Children's Homes, they are ALL exceptional in cleanliness and love, among other things.

Same as above, it's impossible. It's like trying to make people recycle their garbage, you have to influence one's moral base for him to make changes on his lifestyle. Not factible.

I understand the motivations of your post, but it lacks depth, and doesn't really account for all the difficulty's any of these points are sure to present, as if it was just as easy as saying ok, let's do it

You're not the only one to wonder that. Apparently, sex ed programs that teach abstinence only are preferred by the government, and as such they tend to get more funding. But we all know teens aren't going to keep their pants on. Ignorance of protection leads to unwanted pregnancies, and unwanted pregnancies lead to abortions.

So how to fix that problem? Teach proper sex ed. Kids will know how to properly use protection, so unwanted pregnancies decrease, and thus abortions (at least among teens) decrease.

The main arguments against this, however, are these:

Teaching kids about safe sex will just encourage them to have sex

Indeed, telling kids that birth control pills are 99% effective at preventing pregnancy can give them the idea that they can do whatever they want without consequence. But since teens are going to have sex regardless of how much they know about it, it's better overall to have them go at it safely. In other words, it's the lesser of two evils.

Protection is not 100% effective

Also true. But again, kids will have sex no matter what people want. Better to teach them less-than-perfect methods of protection than to caution against sex in general, which will fall on mostly deaf ears.

Basically, teen sex is going to happen no matter what. So it's futile to hope to stop it from ever happening. It's better to concentrate on reducing the need for abortions by teaching about protection so pregnancies don't happen in the first place.

do you know what's interesting about the majority of anti-abortion people I know? They care a lot about the fetus but they don't give a fuck about what happens to it once it's born... Half of these people are against sex-education but they want abortion to be ilegal? does anyone see the contradiction?

Yeah maybe if people concentrated on trying to avoid unwanted pregnancies they could ultimately get more of what they want, less abortions, but they don't give a fuck do they? It's ridiculous.

*bump due to the anniversary of Roe V Wade*

I have to wonder what would happen if people took all the money they used in protest of abortion and each other, and put it towards reducing unwanted pregnancies and increasing health care for women and children, especially those at, around, and below the poverty level.

I'm prolife, which means I'm profreedom, which is prochoice.

Righto, well she said we and i assumed she was speaking about in our own nations (no idea why). But you're right, many parts of the world still don't have anywhere near enough access to BC methods. In fact in many places people aren't even aware of them due to cultural taboos. Now does everyone deserve the freedom of knowledge? Thats a whole other discussion. If they do then that means that the west, both as individuals and as nations and the monopolies that we know we are, need to expand knowledge, physical access and financial access of BC to these regions. This is happening mostly with individuals and private organizations but i think it will take more involvement.

Of course when you get governments involved is when people might start to say that we are encroaching on other people's territory.

I bet I made no sense.

It's late right now, but I'll try to explain it.

Basically, one day, I got sick of the stubborness of both pro-life and pro-choice people. Because of that, I thought over my thoughts concerning abortion and realized that although I do believe there SHOULD be abortion, I also believe that there should be work done to LIMIT the number of abortions and unwanted pregnancies. That's why I'm neither pro-life or pro-choice.

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Birth control is widely available, but we need to know how to make it MORE available.

Yeah, but what about in the poor countries? That's the thing.

How can you not be pro choice or pro life ( or, im guessing pro abortion)? Please explain your stance.

I think that the improvements in foster care are a good start but most of the other points are already in effect. Birth control is widely available, but we need to know how to make it MORE available. I don't think that current education methods are very affective in so called "sex ed", it's obvious that hearing it twenty times over doesn't help stop STDs much. We need to figure out a different approach.

Better birth control (effective and foolproff) is being developed and I think we're all looking forward to it.

*revives*

I've decided I'm no longer pro-choice. However, I am not pro-life. I have decided that I'm 'pro-thought' (kinda corny, I know) and what I want to do is this.

This won't happen unless the world is supplied with unlimited cash flow and unlimited housing..
and people with new mindstates come along and don't dismiss their children (are you forgetting about the children who are having children? Don't judge the children either, you'll be pitied) for having children and raising financial problems that some families may have.

Quit whining about abortion if you don't wanna give your dollar a day to the kids in underdeveloped countries, let alone your own local families.

Life is a walk in the park, with vicious dogs and killer bees.

I posted this in the abortion is wrong thread, but just realized it might be more appropriate to post it here.

Why Do Women Have Abortions?

Assertion: You only talk about hard cases because they raise people’s sympathy, but studies show that in reality, women have abortions for frivolous reasons. It is often because it’s just not "convenient" to have a child.

Response:

There is nothing "convenient" about having an abortion. Especially where it is illegal, having an abortion can be dangerous. And it is still socially stigmatized and personally wrenching.


Women are most often the ones who care for children often under the most difficult circumstances. Women have abortions because they care about others – they want to bring children into the world under good circumstances.
No woman wants to have an abortion for the fun of it or as some sort of rite of passage. The decision to have an abortion reflects the poverty and inequities of the world we live in: scarce resources for and commitment to children; relationships where men are not prepared to love and commit to women and children; hostility toward sexuality and women.

Women have abortions for different, and multiple, reasons. Study after study has shown that in many countries of the world, women who have abortions would have continued that pregnancy if circumstances had been different. But because these women care about what kind of life that child would have, they make their choice on the basis of what they think is best for developing life, for their existing children, for their family, and for their community. Many are poor. They would like to have a better life, to achieve some modest financial stability, and to have children they can care for.
It is very hard to quantify, understand, or document the reasons for which women have abortions. Women’s lives are complex and poorly understood, and society does not yet have the capacity to fully value women’s decisions or their rationales for these decisions. For example, if a woman says that she had an abortion because having a child now would interfere with her work, many who oppose abortion depict that as a trivial reason. But if the woman is the principal breadwinner in her family, if children and possibly other adults depend on her for support, is this a trivial decision?
Ultimately, we cannot judge for any other person what constitutes a worthy reason. In the end it comes down to who gets to make the decision. Clearly, each of us knows our own situation best, and we must be able to make our own decisions.
If one is really serious about reducing the need for abortion, the most effective action is to change the conditions that put women in a situation of involuntary and unbearable pregnancy: unavailable or ineffective birth control; female poverty, especially for single women with responsibility for children; and a macho culture that makes men assert masculinity through sexual conquest of women.
If one is really serious about reducing the incidence of abortion, one must work to reduce the need for abortion. First, by making a range of safe and effective contraceptive methods available, and then by working to create a society that is more welcoming to children and less oppressive to women.
FACTS:

Reasons for abortions

Almost all women give more than one reason for choosing to have an abortion. On average, women in the United States give at least three reasons:
about 3/4 say that having a baby would interfere with work, school, or other responsibilities;
about 2/3 say they cannot afford a child;
about 1/2 say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner; and
about 15,000 women have abortions each year because they became pregnant after rape or incest.
More than half of all pregnancies among US women are unintended; of these, half are terminated by abortion.
"Induced Abortion," Facts in Brief (New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1996).

Most abortions take place because the woman did not intend to become pregnant, but some women who did want to become pregnant also chose abortion:


13% say they made the choice in part because of a possible fetal defect;
7% cite a threat to their own health.
Abortion and Women’s Health (New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1990).


According to studies in Latin America, common reasons for abortion include:


The woman or her partner is poorly paid, under- or unemployed, or a student and cannot afford to bear and rear a child;
The woman’s relationship with her partner is unstable, or the male partner withdrew emotional or economic support upon learning of the pregnancy;
The woman or couple wants to end childbearing or postpone the next birth;
Pregnant teenagers and unmarried women fear rejection by their families and society; and
Some young women want to reach a certain level of personal achievement before becoming mothers.
Clandestine Abortion: A Latin American Reality (Washington: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1994).


http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/nobandwidth/English/indexengno.htm