They can outlaw abortion but they will never stop it.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

Somehow women WILL get abortions if they need them. We may have to set up underground railroads and collect funds but they will never stop abortions. We will just have to assure that safe abortions are somehow available. Bush doesn't have to obey the law, so why should we?

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Like prohibition, they already tried this.

The outcome was the same.

[ginnyinWI]

2. Before 1973 and Roe

There were still one million abortions performed per year in the U.S.

[Fridays Child]

3. That realization, along with the casualties of botched abortions...

...led to legalization. If we turn back the laws, now, we'll have to wait until a few senators' wives and daughters die by the coathanger before the politicians see the error of their ways.

[friesianrider]

9. They don't give a shit...they'd kill a thousand mothers to save one fetus

That's what's so disgusting about all of this. They don't care how many women (mothers) die, just so long as the fetus is "saved."

All the senator's wives and daughters will be rich enough that they'll be able to take off work or school for two weeks and fly to Canada for $2,000 a safe abortion - it won't be them who will die. They'll always be able to get access to safe abortions without a problem. It's the poorer women who will die and suffer from this, and I think it's a safe bet the working poor aren't a high priority on these wingnuts' priority lists.

[Fridays Child]

16. I wish you were wrong....

:(

[friesianrider]

20. I know, so do I

It sucks that the ones making these holier-than-thou decisions won't ever have to be in a position to worry about it.

[KitchenWitch]

27. They won't even have to do that

They will go to their private doctors for a "menstruation regulation" procedure.

[uppityperson]

4. safe? affordable? accessable?

I had one friend travel across the country to NY for a legal safe one. I had one friend spend 6 months in an unwed-mothers home and give her baby up for adoption. I have helped many get legal, safe abortions and do not look kindly upon the loss of this. Many women will NOT get safe abortions. I will do what I can, but many will not get the help they need.

[SmokingJacket]

5. That's one of the main arguments in favor of legalizing it:

Like it or not, women are going to have them. Better to have them safe and legal.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. 25,000 pregnancies per year from rape alone

and the US has the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world.

making abortion illegal will multiply suffering X10 fold.

and they call it the Culture of Life?!

[friesianrider]

7. Abortions happened before Roe and they will happen if Roe is overturned

Unfortunately, it'll be the rich women who will be able to take 3 weeks off from work to fly here or there for thousands of dollars and the poorer women who won't be able to leave their jobs and families to travel somewhere else. It is very difficult for poorer women to get abortions NOW, it will be twice as hard if they make it illegal. Here in Pennsylvania, you need to make one visit to confirm you're pregnant. Then, on a seperate visit, you have to go back for "the video" and "counseling" where we're required to ask the woman about 60 times if she is sure she wants this, wasn't pressured into it by anyone, and knows the risks involved (which is a good thing I suppose). Then, another visit for the surgery. Then, another visit for a follow up. Four vists for an abortion may not seem like a lot, but if you're a single mother with two kids working two jobs...it is a lot. Especially when most health centers that provide abortions are at least an hour away from most women (and for some, the nearest center is in another state).

They'd better be careful what they wish for, that's all I'll say.

[Penndems]

17. And therein lies the real reason why the right wants to overturn Roe

Because prior to Roe v. Wade, the only women who could get a safe, legal abortion were WEALTHY women. Once Roe became the law of the land - and poor and middle-class women encroached upon one of the domains of the monied - the feigned moral indignation began to manifest itself.

Sure, there are some who oppose abortion on religious grounds, but that's not the case with the majority of pro-lifers. It galls the rich to no end that anybody but THEM should be allowed the right to a safe abortion.

And what if some wealthy, white Republican couple wants to adopt a child? They certainly don't want to go through the time, trouble and expense of adoption if they can't have the exact gender and race of newborn they desire. :sarcasm:

I remember well what life was like for a young woman before the Supreme Court's decision. If a girl got "in the family way", she had to leave town. LITERALLY. The family made excuses for her if someone asked about their daughter. Once the girl delivered, the child was turned over to either a parochial orphanage or an adoption agency. She had to sign papers giving either the orphanage or agency custody. And that was it. The young woman returned; life went on.

Then there were those girls who were too scared to tell anyone they'd gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Or those women whose husbands or boyfriends had impregnated them, and then took off when they found out the woman was pregnant. Have you noticed that the far right doesn't ever go after THESE bums (or that the majority of pro-life marchers seem to be men)? Or that they never advocate for strengthening the laws against deadbeat fathers not paying child support? Their philosophy is that "it's the woman's fault she got herself in that position."

We will NEVER, EVER go back to those days again, if I have anything to do with it. (and NO - I've never had an abortion, but I know women who have, and they weren't sluts, as the right so "compassionately" refers to them.)

[Warpy]

8. No, they just manage to stop the SAFE ones

I can imagine that groups like the Jane Collective will eventually get going again, and courageous women will take matters into their own hands as nurses or MDs and provide the safest care one can give outside a medical facility, but it will take time.

The butchers will set up shop immediately.

[pinto]

10. Yeah, your title line is the salient social point. Simply put.

[AndyTiedye]

11. But Thousands of Women Will Die From Unsafe Abortions If Roe Falls

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:tXL1WAUYR7gBiM:

[friesianrider]

13. I'll say again...they don't care how many women die

As long as a fetus is saved, sacrificing the life of the mother who tried to abort it is worth it to them.

[fishwax]

12. they don't care about stopping it

it's all symbolism for them (most of them, anyway). Ask a hard core fundie anti-choice advocate if they'd rather have abortions that are safe and rare or illegal and unsafe, yet no less frequent.

[Caution]

14. if abortion is outlawed RU-486 will be the big black market drug

of the decade. Thankfully this drug exists as it should prevent a lot of botched back-alley abortions.

[Gloria]

21. And some birth control pills, used in higher doses, will do the

job.....they'll have to be hoarded and given through networks....

[USA_1]

15. Abortion was legal BEFORE Roe vs Wade ...

... in about 12 states prior to that decision. Their legality was NOT adjudicated in Roe or in Casey. Only those laws which made abortion illegal in the other states were impacted in Roe. If it is reversed, then those laws are put back into the books and cannot be overturned.

[Penndems]

19. Not in Virginia it wasn't . . .

Prior to 1973, both the woman having the abortion AND her doctor could go to jail here in The Old Dominion. End of story.

My best friend's sister was brutally raped in 1967. The only place she could go to legally terminate the ensuing pregnancy safely and legally was New York State, which is exactly where her family took her. It cost them $1,500 - a tremendously large sum of money at that time.

They didn't want their daughter to live with the shame of an unwanted pregnancy that could've ruined her life. So, they did what they felt they had to.

[Inland]

18. There's a fair number that want just that result.

Or at least, don't care as long as there's a law on the books and it's done ashamedly with a few deaths from back alley abortions.

John McCain's daughters will have abortions if they want them. He knows that, and he's good with it.

[okieinpain]

22. no joke, the little vacations to cancun will go through the roof. hell

we can even contribute to some type of get to know your other neighbor organization. I just wonder what the so-called christians are going to do when the black population starts to rise.

[renate]

23. my mom's friend mentioned just casually that she remembered a situation...

...oh, man, this just blew my mind. When she was young a friend of hers, a 14-year-old girl, was pregnant and her mother had tried the coat-hanger trick on her. It didn't work. Luckily the girl survived.

I had never, in all the times I'd heard of back-alley abortions, etc, even imagined a scenario in which a mother tried to induce an abortion by inserting a coat hanger into her daughter's uterus. How unbelievably horrifying, how awful for the mother as well as for the daughter... and yet my mom's friend was of a generation in which it was more of a "yeah, that happened" than a "this is something no mother and daughter should have to go through" kind of thing. I mean, she was sad that it had happened, but I was practically on the floor.

[niyad]

24. that is why we have the button with the coat hanger, and the wrods "NEVER

AGAIN" with the slash through it.

coat hangers, knitting needles, lye, all manner of almost unimaginable articles were used to self-abort.

that is another reason that alternative healers are being targeted, because they KNOW non-surgical ways to end pregnancies.

[Qanisqineq]

25. that doesn't make me feel any better

Watch as the number of suicides skyrockets, too. I know, I've had a couple unwanted pregnancies in my early twenties. I wanted to commit suicide. For some women, there won't be anyone to turn to so they can even get help with or find information on an illegal abortion. I can't imagine using a coat hanger on my own. Even if abortion is still legal in some states -- Imagine a teenage girl in the center of the USA with no provider in a city close enough to drive there and back in a day, no way to take off for 2-3 days without severe punishment from her parents. Believe me, I'd be more than willing to help with an underground railroad, but that doesn't always help a 16 year-old girl in a small rural community.

[Lexingtonian]

26. no one intelligent is going to submit to any such outlawing

It's all such a recipe for hypocrisy and the rule of stupidity and cruelty that everyone sensible has to be offended.

The banners are too late, really. For one thing, the technology has changed and switchover to chemical abortifacients as the principal means is possible. Not desirable, but possible.

As the politics goes, the anti-choice people are actually in abrupt decline. There was a profound collapse in support for them this past summer when O'Connor handed in her letter, surprisingly enough. A soft 10% left them during July and August and 10% previously Undecideds/lean choicers went over to pro-choice support, shifting things from 45/45 to 55/35 against banning.

Things have gotten worse for the anti people since- I was surprised by the latest numbers, don't know what the story is, but another 10% seem to have softened towards Roe and gone over to calling themselves Undecided about an overturn since October. Maybe it was the Miers story, or maybe it's a result of Alito getting nominated. And a couple more percent have gone over from Undecided to definitely leaning pro-choice. It's really been a political sea change in popular opinion the past six months.

Here's the latest polling, with some context- (look at the very bottom two tables)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/2006-01-23-poll.htm#bush

With those numbers and that sort of decline/implosion of the 'pro-life' side, which is really The People breaking its stalemate and deciding the issue, the Supreme Court probably can't actually ban abortion in any permanent way. And even if it tried, it would blow up its credibility. Either the states would mostly legalize it, or if they were barred from it Congress could probably reinstate the legalization via its Section 5 powers to enforce Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. In any case, the Republican Party stands to be the loser in any and all such backlash, taking its Supreme Court majority down with it.

If you can get your hands on a December 3 New York Times, there's a longish article on abortion rates (high) and the approaching legalization efforts in Latin America. When the Catholic Church loses that fight, the fight about abortion legalization might well be decided as a worldwide matter.