News-Record.com

Actually, I'm not surprised at the findings of the poll. I would have guessed that the ability or willingness to support/nurture a child would be a big issue for most women.

I think this points to a major problem we have in America -- responsibility for reproduction. How many men are willing to use condoms? I would not be surprised to find that an awful lot of women who opt for abortion find themselves pregnant because they engaged in sex at their partners' demands for unprotected fun, and things ended up with a pregnancy that could readily have been avoided. This becomes a major issue when you realize that not every woman can safely use the pill.

One would hope that contraception would become the norm... but no, there are now religious organizations (not only the Catholics!) that oppose even the use of safe, effective contraceptives. You'd think avoiding pregnancy would be a big plus for abortion opponents, but not so.

It seems to me that the main goal, when you get down to it, is the desire to control female bodies and take away from them any options that might allow them any sort of sexual liberty.

I agree with eric regarding the findings of this poll/survey.

What infuriates me is that people in this time are so willing to have un-safer sex! What are they thinking? Then, to top it off, should a pregnancy occur, the people are unwilling to take the ultimate responsibility for their wanton action.

Shalom

Some of the numbers in this poll are very old. More than 10 years old in some cases. I don't think the poll is deliberately skewed and I'm not commenting on author bias (I don't think there is any). What surprises me is your headline for this post - it's fairly incendiary about a report that says the number of abortions is decreasing in the US.

Has anyone figured out why? Perhaps it's sex ed, or empowerment of women through knowledge and saying no, to using condoms, to women wanting education more than children (at anearly age and avoiding pregnancy in favor of college).

Could it be that open discussion has led women both to choose not to become pregnant (by not having sex or having only protected sex)?

Nancy, abortion has NOT become birth control; pro-choice advocates have never stated that abortion is a first-level birth control option. It's a last-resort for many women for whatever reasons they choose.

Now that sentence (above) will probably upset many people but pro-choice is simply not pro-abortion. It's pro-choice, a very difficult choice, but a woman's right to that choice is US law. Your misleading headline, especially in a time when the SCOTUS has the lives and livelihood of so many women in their mostly male hands, is unfortunate as it will fuel fires in a place that needs attempt at discussion among smoldering ruins.

"The Second Look Project asks: Is this acceptable?"

I often wonder why any Christian (regardless of sect) is against abortion.

http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/abortpuzzle.html

It didn't make any sense to me while I was a believer, and it still doesn't make any sense to me.

Maybe I'm naive, but if the overall numbers are decreasing, and the number of people who opt for abortion because of rape, incest, health problems is less than 10 percent, what is it saying about abortion as birth control? I mean, some people are pro-choice only because of the reasons that less than 10 percent of the women gave.

And in the condom war: Is it really acceptable to essentially teach people en masse that it's more honorable/righteous to die instead of protecting yourself?

Well, it is an interesting question, as to why a person is "pro-choice." Personally, I consider it a privacy issue. As in "I think women should have the right to choose abortion privately, without having to ask my permission or the permission of the state." I'm not interested in the reasons given, and don't see why I should be.

I knew a woman who actually said that she didn't care if she got pregnant, because it was easy to get an abortion. While I found that attitude pretty much the opposite of mine, I didn't feel it was my place to argue with her about it. I changed the subject and thanked my lucky stars I never dated her.

The point being that one of the things I value most is the autonomy of the individual, so long as an individual doesn't harm the rest of society. I truly don't think it's my place, or my government's place to get between a woman and her right to do what she sees fit to do with her body.

eric, I find much validity in what is written.

One thing does make me ponder though, the last comment; "I truly don't think it's my place, or my government's place to get between a woman and her right to do what she sees fit to do with her body."

I have feelings of a like nature regarding euthanasia. Yet, the Fed has basically said that this is illegal, except for the most recent case from Washington? Oregon? (I do not recall the exact NW state.)

So, we see that the government is involved in our lives much more than the Constitution allows. The difficulty is getting the people elected to office to see that as well, not to mention those chosen to serve on the President's Court (formerly known as the US Supreme Court).

Shalom

"I have feelings of a like nature regarding euthanasia. Yet, the Fed has basically said that this is illegal, except for the most recent case from Washington? Oregon? (I do not recall the exact NW state.)"

Yep, it's Oregon. Interestingly, I have a letter to the editor coming out on this very subject in the next couple of days.

"So, we see that the government is involved in our lives much more than the Constitution allows. The difficulty is getting the people elected to office to see that as well"

It has often been remarked that the "religious right" is pretty far removed from the old Republican ideal of "less government is better." Who could give us the "right amount"? No one I can think of at the moment.

Have you people thought about the fact that what you are talking about as a choice is really the murder of a human being? I know that there are many that don't believe that a baby is a human being with rights of their own until they emerge from the womb and survive for a period of days or weeks, but there are some who feel that baby is a person. So, exactly at what point does an unborn child without a right to life become a person with rights and civil liberties?

I'm often entertained by people who are callous toward the rights of the unborn, but once the child is born, they are fanatical about protecting the rights of that child and their civil liberties. It's seems like a huge paradox to me.

I don't think that the strand headline is particularly incendiary when I read the referenced article. As a matter for fact, I think it is very descriptive when you look at these facts from the article. We're talking about large scale feticide here:

. Of the approximately 3 million unintended pregnancies each year in the U.S., 47% are terminated by abortion. (That's 1,410,000 lives per year ended in abortion!)

. The vast majority of abortions are elective. (Sounds like birth control to me.) Women generally decide to have an abortion because of economic or other personal reasons. (Yikes!)

. 67.3% of women who have abortions have never been married

God save our souls!

"Have you people thought about the fact that what you are talking about as a choice is really the murder of a human being?"

I dispute that this concept is an incontrovertable "fact." How do you define the start of a life? If it's at conception, have you ever thought to ask why the majority of those zygotes die before the actual pregnancy begins?

"I'm often entertained by people who are callous toward the rights of the unborn, but once the child is born, they are fanatical about protecting the rights of that child and their civil liberties. It's seems like a huge paradox to me."

Entertained? My, how superior of you. I bet you have a lot of civil conversations at the entrances to women's health clinics...

eric,

Superior? Not really, but I am intelligent enough to know when life begins. Life begins when you have a living organism. If you've ever looked at a sonogram of an unborn child, you can tell that it is a human being. I have. Have you ever heard the heartbeat of an unborn child? I have. Have you ever felt an unborn child kick in his mother's womb? I have. What more facts do you need to understand that is a human being in there? If it is not, what is it? When they pull a baby out of its mother, stick a pair of scissors in the baby's skull, and suck its brains out, do you think that you could tell whether it is a human being? For more information on this holocaust, take a look here at American Death Camps:

http://lifedynamics.com/DeathCamps/Methods3.cfm

No, I've never stood in the entrance of an abortion clinic and had a conversation with any customers. I have a hard time uderstanding how a woman can "choose" to murder their unborn child. It just doesn't seem like something that should be legal in a what is supposed to be a civilized country. How can a woman be that callous?

eric, perhaps, you should go to one of those women's health clinics and see what an abortion really is about. You might come away with a different view. Or not.

I would propose that rather than devolve into a debate on the morality of abortion or the politics of choice, we might instead begin from an understanding that, in a society where abortion is legal and available, fewer abortions are a good thing.

If that is possible, then read on.

If we really want fewer abortions, we need to do a few things that this society is not very keen on:

1. Provide comprehensive sexuality education to our youth. Real, scientific studies have shown that ONLY comprehensive sexuality education (as opposed to the mostly medically-inaccurate abstinence-only stuff being funded by our government) increases the likelihood that people having sexual intercourse will use some form of contraception. Abstinence-only sexuality education, in denying that condoms exist to suit people in denial, leads to more unwanted pregnancies--and therefore more abortions. (see studies by the very same Alan Guttmacher Institute, as well as the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US--www.siecus.org)

2. Make birth control methods more available and less shameful in our society.

I belive that this is a morally-defensible religions viewpoint.

It is one Unitarian Universalists teach in our own religious education classrooms (www.uua.org/owl).

in peace,
Michael

"I would propose that rather than devolve into a debate on the morality of abortion or the politics of choice, we might instead begin from an understanding that, in a society where abortion is legal and available, fewer abortions are a good thing."

I agree with this and the rest of what you said, Michael. While I would be happy to see nothing but wanted pregnancies, with parents who will love and support their children, I know better than to expect that will ever happen.

What I find disturbing is the efforts by religious extremists to limit the access and use of contraceptives. This is why I think the whole struggle here isn't about "babies lives" so much as it is about keeping women from being able to make their own decisions at any stage of the reproductive process.

Based on what I have read from the Christians who make such a big deal about abortion, it's apparent that they are not putting forth a logically coherent stance. This seems to be a sign that they have other goals in mind that they aren't openly sharing.

The problem with most of the positions entered in this blog is that they fail to see the larger issue: the holiness and beauty of human life – because it is the handiwork of a loving Creator. Giving a woman a god-like prerogative in deciding thumbs up or down for a precious, vulnerable baby in the womb is one of the supreme acts of humanist arrogance, which considers the human brain the ultimate standard-making consciousness in the universe. Pretty much like crediting the jellyfish with such powers over bacteria.
Without God and his Law/Word (Decalogue, et al.) we are left with our current rapidly descending moral freefall in which human life, viewed as a kind of malevolent big-brained goof in the evolutionary continuum, can only be redeemed and changed by assuming divine prerogatives.
As for government intruding into the lives of private citizens, the left is afflicted with pure hypocrisy – wanting courts and governments to forbid religious condemnation of homosexuality because it doesn’t fit the PC agenda. As far as moral direction from the State, we are regulated in almost every sphere of life; from traffic laws to tort litigation to not stealing or killing. In truth, all law is ultimately moral in nature. It is all based on shared values. The logical and justifiable call by Christians for making abortion illegal is that it is in fact murder. Only a bunch of PC ostriches with their moral heads deep in the sand could possibly believe otherwise. Even left-leaning PBS aired a special not long ago about fetal development in the womb that must have sent shivers down the spine of all but the most hardened feminists and politicos.
But, as I have said many times, the Biblical viewpoint is “foolishness to them that are perishing.” To have truly encountered the risen Messiah in the New Birth is the only thing that can open blind eyes to the beautiful treasure of a baby – pre-born or post-birth. The full significance of the human life is only appreciated when it is understood as the very “image and likeness” of a loving Creator. All the universe is holy only because God IS – and brought it into being.
The issue is not human rights – but a wise and ardent desire to please the God who made and ordered all. I have seen a newborn baby five minutes after – only PC delusion could possibly justify killing that wonderful gift from God at any stage in its conception and development. The issue is not when conception occurs, but that it does and that it is holy. We have complicated the moral landscape into chaos by our sin and moral rebellion. The way home to love and truth and holiness – and true freedom – in through the Gospel of grace. Then all moral issues will come into clear focus.

It always puzzles me that those who support the right to chose an abortion are convinced that those who disagree with them just dont want women to make their own decisions concerning the reproductive process. The post by Nikos says it all.
My oppostion to abortion comes not only from a Christian perspective but from an egalitarian one. Those who favor abortion refer to themselves as being progressives and liberal. But strangely during this idea of choice the neither the rights of the unborn nor the father come into play. Thus a man who insists that his wife have an abortion is nothing short of a patriarchal cad; while the woman who insists on an abortion is seen, not as a destroyer of life, but a hero of individualism.

I would like to know what Eric would consider a "logically coherent stance" against abortion. I am a Christian and I am also a woman and before I had my own 3 children, I worked with the Latino population (I speak Spanish) in a maternity and family planning clinic in a local health dept. I can honestly say that I saw plenty of women who used abortion as a form of birth control and contrary to what many have argued above, most had been educated about birth control methods and were provided FREE birth control from the clinic and they were never made to feel ashamed for seeking them. I must say that more of the American women were willing to get quick abortions to avoid inconvenience (their own words on many occasions) but as the Spanish speaking women began to learn more about birth control and abortions, the actual percentages of Latin women seeking abortion began to RISE. When I was about to leave the position, the clinic began offering a "morning after" pill and women were clamoring to use it (often the same women repeatedly). I have to say that ALL forms of birth control can have side effects, some very serious for the health of the women using them. Also, I totally disagree with Michael, who believes the more you teach people to use the birth control methods, the less problems with abortion you will have. That is simply not the case. You can argue studies, but I have lived it. When I was in high school, I had friends who had been educated on all the different methods, and many still seemed surprised that they got pregnant and many had abortions. Abstinence education has also been very effective in Uganda in reducing the number of AIDS cases, whereas many of the condom programs have failed. Unfortunately, it comes down to a heart issue and whether or not you fear God. Back to Eric's idea that Christians have some hidden agenda because they oppose abortion: when you begin to understand that EVERY human being is created in the image of God, you respect life in a different way. This is why I cannot understand people who refer to themselves as Christians, yet they bomb abortion clinics or kill the doctors who perform them. This is totally inconsistent with the teachings of Christ, who admonished his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. Also, Eric said that he thinks it is about controlling women's bodies and denying them sexual freedoms. Please tell me how I, as a woman, would be most concerned about spoiling their fun and controlling their bodies? Why don't you sit down and talk to a diverse group of women who have had various partners and have had abortions. The majority of the time, if you go below the surface, you will see major emotional scars. Innately, most women want to be loved, and many offer themselves sexually as a way to get it. Also, Sue might be surprised to see many "empowered" women who are attending the local university, have had sex ed and have been personally handed free condoms, etc. are the same ones asking for the number to the local abortion clinic when their pregnancy test is positive. And again to Eric, how do you know that the MAJORITY of zygotes die before the pregnancy begins? I suppose you mean before they implant in the uterus. I wonder how they doctors could even know that??? There are also spontaneous miscarriages, but it is different when God decides for a baby to die before birth and when a person decides to terminate the life of an unborn child.