To start, a greater public emphasis on family planning through birth control and especially the morning after pill. I have talked to so many people who either were unaware of the morning after pill or had been deceived into thinking it is an abortion pill that its appalling. A public which is well educated on means of birth control and not cornered into the abstinence only nonsense the present administration pushes is key to cutting down on the number of abortions.

I agree with you completely with regard to a public that is well educated. The current abstinence only policy that many school systems are forced to promote is foolish. A more comprehensive program that includes abstinence as a choice along with birth control information makes better sense overall. The more information that is available, the better the chances of making an informed decision.

The next step policy-wise would be to make it easier for women with unwanted pregnancies to make the decision to bring the baby to term. The first step (as I see it) to doing this is to reform child services so that its a viable alternative rather than the embarrassment that it is. Health care reforms so as to minimize the financial burdens are also necessary. I'm certain there are other things which could be done to make it easier on mothers with unwanted pregnancies to decide to bring the baby to term, but I think you can see where I'm going with this. I would also oppose any policy seeking to create disincentives to abortion rather than incentives to birth.

I

Each and every time I vote I have one litmus test that trumps them all. I will NEVER vote for any candidate who does not support the right of a woman to have full and complete reproductive freedom. It is beyond hubris for anyone to tell another adult human being what they can do with their body simply because they "disagree" with the choice. Your take the lives of real human beings and mess them up based on your whimsical and capricious decision that you know, better than they do, what is right for them.

I don't care if the woman is purposely having unprotected sex because she wants to get abortions because she like the feel of the anesthetic. When it comes to taking that parasite out of her body if she wants it out the decision is hers and hers alone.

Purely from a global public policy perspective, I think abortion and all other types of family planning are crucial to limiting & slowing the growth of the human population on this planet.

Vic

Purely from a global public policy perspective, I think abortion and all other types of family planning are crucial to limiting & slowing the growth of the human population on this planet.

Amen to that!

Bringing a child to term cannot always be made a realistic option. For me, both times I had abortions, the being pregnant was the crisis. If a baby had materialized in our midst, it would not have been a terrible thing. (we love children: children are not difficult to live with: we already had children, so we were already doing children things: we wouldn't have needed to buy a lot of baby crap because we had what we thought was necessary and didn't believe in buying a lot of other stuff) But I was a necessary part of the picture, and there was a very real possibility that carrying a child to term would knock me out of the picture. I was not in immanent danger of dying either time I had an abortion, but my risk of ill health (bad enough to threaten my contribution to the economic life of the family, at least) or death was unacceptably elevated. Now, financial support would have helped somewhat, but it's cold comfort to replace mommy's wages when mommy's dead or ill.

That's the thing nobody ever wants to talk about when they talk about the ethics of pregnancy. Normal, healthy women die of complications of pregnancy and childbirth. It's a significant risk, even in developed countries (and significantly more in the US compared to many other developed countries). An acquaintance of mine did. She was healthy, except for some oddments, and then she was pre-eclamptic (as was I), and then eclampsia took her. Her husband was left with a motherless newborn. In my first pregnancy there came a moment where my husband was confronted with the possibility that either or neither of us -- me and the baby -- might survive. He told the doctor that if there was a point where only one of us could be saved, he wanted me.

(long story short, he got both of us. kid is all grown up now).

To me, every time a woman gets an abortion, she is in that moment of mine, where she has to choose her life over the life of a potential person. I think risking your life for the life of a person who is not here yet is a choice which cannot be second-guessed by bystanders. Not even the men who provide the sperm to make the potential person. Mostly women don't die of pregnancy and childbirth, yes. But the risk is significant. And that is why I think fathers may get a voice, but they don't get a veto, on the subject of keeping the baby or having an abortion.