While the overall trend is encouraging, the increase in abortions among the poor is cause for concern:
Abortion rates fell among most groups of women between 2000 and 2008, except for those classified as poor, finds an analysis conducted by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute and published online today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Guttmacher, which has been tracking abortion since 1974, found that the abortion rate for low-income women increased 18% during the same period that the national rate dropped 8%.
May 25th, 2011 | 10:46 am
Hardly a surprise. But it might give pro-life conservatives pause. If abortion really were at the top of their list, they would need to promote a higher minimum wage. After all, if they are not willing to allow people to earn a decent living, such conservatives would be manifestly pro-abortion.
May 25th, 2011 | 10:52 am
Todd If abortion really were at the top of their list, they would need to promote a higher minimum wage.
A higher minimum wage means fewer jobs for the poor. How exactly does that help reduce abortion?
May 25th, 2011 | 12:06 pm
Speaking of the poor and abortion —
“when John Cardinal O’Connor of New York, and some of these other Cardinals and Bishops have experienced their first pregnancies and their first labor pains, and they’ve raised a couple of children on minimum wage, then I’ll be glad to hear what they have to say about abortion. I’m sure it will be interesting and enlightening…” — George Carlin
May 25th, 2011 | 12:10 pm
A higher minimum wage means fewer jobs for the poor.
That is a plausible hypothesis, but I don’t believe it is an economic fact. It depends on which economists you ask.
However, I do think it is reasonable to argue that improving the lot of the poor is a reasonable anti-abortion strategy, but something that should be done even if it were not.
May 25th, 2011 | 1:10 pm
When George Carlin has been sucked through a machine, I’ll be happy to hear his views on abortion.
Isn’t this game fun?
May 25th, 2011 | 1:18 pm
David, I agree that improving the lot of the poor is a good in itself, but I have a strong feeling you and I would disagree vigorously on the degree to which the poor are poor because of factors beyond their control (certainly happens, but how often?) and the degree to which they are poor because of bad choices. So far, the approach taken since the “Great Society” has been to subsidize bad choices. I don’t see how that approach can make a dent in either poverty or the abortions resulting from it.
May 25th, 2011 | 1:19 pm
Pentamom, You go girl!
May 25th, 2011 | 1:33 pm
>A higher minimum wage means fewer jobs for the poor.
Naw, David, it’s just intuitive and common-sensical, hardly something to send a “thrill” up the progressive leg.
May 25th, 2011 | 1:55 pm
“So far, the approach taken since the “Great Society” has been to subsidize bad choices.”
Since the Great Society? I can buy that. One prime example: he Bailout of ’08. And what have been the fruits of that? Several millions of new unemployed. More abortions.
May 25th, 2011 | 2:14 pm
Fred wrote:
the degree to which the poor are poor because of factors beyond their control (certainly happens, but how often?) and the degree to which they are poor because of bad choices. So far, the approach taken since the “Great Society” has been to subsidize bad choices.
There is no question that the poor often stay poor in part because of their bad choices, but more often than not they find themselves poor because of an accident of birth, because they were born into a culture of intergenerational poverty, a culture that teaches them to make those bad choices.
But we all make bad choices. It’s not so easy not to make them – it’s not so easy not to sin. So while Great Society programs don’t disincentivize those bad choices, and may often encourage them, they do show mercy towards people who pay more for those choices then the rest of us do. So how do we show mercy without encouraging behavior that makes it necessary? Obviously individuals and individual churches and organizations can help many people, as conservatives point out, but they can’t or don’t help everyone.
May 25th, 2011 | 2:25 pm
@Pentamom
“Isn’t this game fun?”
Zing!!
May 25th, 2011 | 2:46 pm
As a member of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, I can observe behavioral choices that contribute to impoverishment and poverty (not all of which involve sin, I should hasten to add), but there are many many factors that are either organic or circumstantial that play as much or greater role.
The American civic religion of success obscures and conceals more than it reveals, particularly regarding the lottery of choosing your parents and where and when you are born, all of which have enormous impacts on your likelihood of success. But Americans need our myths more than reality, it seems.
May 25th, 2011 | 3:41 pm
@Pentamom
Let’s put our current disagreement behind us for a second. As you’re mother of 5 kids, I really find it strange we disagree so much about abortion. My mom was a quadmom, my grandmother a trimom, and my great grandmother a dodecamom. If abortion is outlawed and women are forced to become mothers against their will, doesn’t that reduce respect for mothers as a whole? Motherhood becomes something forced, and not something given freely.
May 25th, 2011 | 4:20 pm
Hi, pentamom,
That was a great response. I laughed out loud. Way to go.
May 25th, 2011 | 5:28 pm
“If abortion is outlawed and women are forced to become mothers against their will”
You’ve started with the topic at hand, legality of abortion in general, then tacked on a qualifier which turns it into something else entirely. In the case of rape, there perhaps could be a compromise at least in the law (although it would remain morally wrong) to allow an abortion. That’s the only case in which there is force.
Most abortions, however, are not rape cases. So is what you’re actually arguing that criminalized abortion in general reduces respect for mothers? I suppose if your have an overly idealized vision of mothers as never harming their children, then in that case, yes it would take them off that particular pedestal. Respect for mothers in this case needs to be balanced with respect for the unborn. In practice, I believe the right to not be aborted (i.e. killed) trumps the right of the mother.
May 25th, 2011 | 5:28 pm
Naw, David, it’s just intuitive and common-sensical, hardly something to send a “thrill” up the progressive leg.
didymus46,
If you can find anything that definitively proves that raising the minimum wage kills jobs, I would love to read it. I have seen the issue argued in forums like this, and so far the issue has not been resolved.
I don’t think anything about economics is commonsensical or intuitive.
May 25th, 2011 | 7:08 pm
Actually, Carlin was kinda sucked through a machine – his body was cremated when he died 3 years ago.
May 25th, 2011 | 8:29 pm
Pentamom!! :)
May 25th, 2011 | 8:47 pm
@Patrick
“In the case of rape, there perhaps could be a compromise at least in the law (although it would remain morally wrong) to allow an abortion. That’s the only case in which there is force.”
So basically, for a woman to get an abortion, she would need to press a rape charge. This seems like a really bad prospect for men.
May 25th, 2011 | 9:30 pm
Jeremy –
what Patrick said. And in your response to him, you’re moving the goal post to a different topic.
May 25th, 2011 | 10:02 pm
You’ve started with the topic at hand, legality of abortion in general, then tacked on a qualifier which turns it into something else entirely. In the case of rape, there perhaps could be a compromise at least in the law (although it would remain morally wrong) to allow an abortion. That’s the only case in which there is force.
Instead of killing the baby, we should remove it live from the womb and transfer it to a surrogate (or to the parent who intends to adopt the child).
Both the child’s biological mother and father can be billed equally for the costs of the procedure and be equally liable for child support until and unless an adoption took place.
There are many couples waiting to adopt who would be willing to consent to this highly experimental procedure.
That IMO would be real progress.
May 25th, 2011 | 10:56 pm
@Blake
“Instead of killing the baby, we should remove it live from the womb and transfer it to a surrogate (or to the parent who intends to adopt the child).”
Fascinating. With about 1 million abortions per year just in the US, one will need a lot of volunteers to make this fly. I’m trust that all pro-life women will be on the volunteer list for this.
May 26th, 2011 | 1:04 am
Hello, Blake, Jeremy,
There are about two million couples waiting to adopt. I think if being a surrogate mother was a real option many of those couples would be willing to do that.
I suspect that most woman seeking abortion want to be “unpregnant” more than anything else. I suspect that it is not that they don’t want the child to live, they just don’t feel they can deal with the child for whatever reason.
It seems like if it were technically possible to do so, transferring the child from one womb to another would be a solution for the woman with the unwanted pregnancy, a solution for the adoptive couple and certainly a better deal for the child in the womb.
Most women wouldn’t insist on a dead baby if there was an alternative that was no less trouble than the abortion procedure. Right?
May 26th, 2011 | 1:07 am
“Most women wouldn’t insist on a dead baby if there was an alternative that was no less trouble than the abortion procedure. Right?”
I meant to say “no more trouble”.
May 26th, 2011 | 1:12 am
“There are about two million couples waiting to adopt.”
Really? There are 130,000 kids waiting to be adopted. What’s the dang holdup?
May 26th, 2011 | 6:05 am
Hello, Blake, Jeremy,
There are about two million couples waiting to adopt. I think if being a surrogate mother was a real option many of those couples would be willing to do that.
Are you seriously saying that no surrogates are available?
Really?
May 26th, 2011 | 6:08 am
Fascinating. With about 1 million abortions per year just in the US, one will need a lot of volunteers to make this fly.
No, after we establish that it is possible to transplant children from one womb to another, criminalizing abortion will be much easier.
May 26th, 2011 | 6:11 am
I suspect that most woman seeking abortion want to be “unpregnant” more than anything else. I suspect that it is not that they don’t want the child to live, they just don’t feel they can deal with the child for whatever reason.
Well, sure.
A mature person could not kill their own child. They’d be aware that it would bloody their conscience. The only people capable of killing their own children would have to be either sociopathically inhuman or else very, very immature.
May 26th, 2011 | 7:50 am
“There are about two million couples waiting to adopt.”
Really? There are 130,000 kids waiting to be adopted. What’s the dang holdup?
Actually, worldwide there are more like 2,100,000 orphans, but you get the point.
May 26th, 2011 | 9:24 am
Blake wrote:
“Are you seriously saying that no surrogates are available?”
No. I am saying it seems that many couples wanting to adopt would volunteer.
Todd wrote:
“There are 130,000 kids waiting to be adopted. What’s the dang holdup?”
I suspect many people are not willing to adopt just any child, but want a healthy newborn.
Jeremy wrote:
“Actually, worldwide there are more like 2,100,000 orphans, but you get the point.”
Adopting a child should be somewhat difficult as it being too easy would lead to abuses, but I think it has now become way too difficult and expensive to adopt. This situation and many couples wanting certain qualities in the child they adopt leaves many children orphans.
May 26th, 2011 | 12:02 pm
“Are you seriously saying that no surrogates are available?”
No. I am saying it seems that many couples wanting to adopt would volunteer.
Okay – sorry for the misreading.
May 26th, 2011 | 12:54 pm
“I suspect many people are not willing to adopt just any child, but want a healthy newborn.”
Birth parents have no guarantee their very own newborn will be healthy.
Sadly, some prospective adoptive parents seem to prefer playing god. You don’t get the perfect kid. But that’s okay, because no kid gets a perfect parent, either.
May 26th, 2011 | 6:28 pm
“Adopting a child should be somewhat difficult as it being too easy would lead to abuses, but I think it has now become way too difficult and expensive to adopt. This situation and many couples wanting certain qualities in the child they adopt leaves many children orphans.”
I think I may agree with this. The bottom line is there are hundreds of thousands of unwanted children now with people unwilling or unable to adopt. When people promote anti birth control policies that bring unwanted children into the world, they promote human misery, all the while they are well fed.
May 27th, 2011 | 7:31 am
“Sadly, some prospective adoptive parents seem to prefer playing god. You don’t get the perfect kid. But that’s okay, because no kid gets a perfect parent, either.”
This is another reason why the adoption process takes so long. The adoption agencies has to screen the 2 million parents to make sure that they will take care and love the child.
Do we just need a new screening process?
May 27th, 2011 | 9:08 am
“Do we just need a new screening process?”
No. In my state, certification is involved, but not unbearable.
From the start to the placement, my wife and I waited a bit more than two years. But that included being considered for about thirty other kids in the last year after we were certified.
My mother’s eldest child, I was born after my parents’ 13th wedding anniversary.
Choosing to have a birth child is no guarantee of a nine-month wait.
May 28th, 2011 | 8:40 am
@Blake
“Instead of killing the baby, we should remove it live from the womb and transfer it to a surrogate (or to the parent who intends to adopt the child).”
Fascinating. With about 1 million abortions per year just in the US, one will need a lot of volunteers to make this fly. I’m trust that all pro-life women will be on the volunteer list for this.
I doubt all pro-life women would be on the volunteer list for this.
I am opposed to killing puppies, but I certainly don’t intend to take responsibility for every yutz that is too dumb to spay (or at least restrain) his dog.
I would not hold childbearing-age pro-life women to a higher standard than I am willing to meet myself.
That said, I would not be at all surprised if many women did choose to volunteer their bodies. There are a lot of generous people out there.
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