Women will get abortions, legal or not, so keep it safe

[babylonsister]

Women will get abortions, legal or not, so keep it safe

By KATHA POLLITT
GUEST COLUMNIST

For years feminists and abortion rights supporters have pointed out that women have abortions whether or not the procedure is legal.

That was true here before Roe v. Wade, and it is true today in countries where abortion is restricted or banned. The difference is that when abortion is legal it is a remarkably safe procedure; when it is illegal, women are injured, women die, children are left motherless. (True, these are already existing, sinful children, not embryos or fetuses, but still.) This simple public health argument has gotten lost in a thicket of theology, sexual morality, "family values," politics, spin and outright disinformation. The coat hanger has become a political cliché, a relic of the '60s, like the peace sign. Oh, that old thing.

Now comes an article in The Lancet that shows in cold hard data how right we've been all along. "Induced Abortion: Estimated Rates and Trends Worldwide," a study conducted by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute, is the first global analysis of abortion incidence since 1995. It finds that rates of abortion (the number of abortions per 1,000 women) are relatively unaffected by whether it is legal. Thus, in South America, where abortion is largely illegal, the rate is 33; in northern America, where it is legal, the rate is 21. "The legal status of abortion doesn't predict whether abortions occur," study co-author Gilda Sedgh told me by phone. "It predicts whether they are safe. South Africa liberalized its abortion laws in l997, and maternal deaths from unsafe abortion have plummeted by 90 percent." Around the world 48 percent of abortions are unsafe -- that's more than 20 million. Some 67,000 women die from unsafe abortions -- 13 percent of maternal deaths, almost all of them in the developing world, where abortion is mostly restricted or banned. Many times that number are injured or maimed.

The good news is that the global trend is toward legalization: As Susan Cohen reports in the upcoming Guttmacher Policy Review, since the Beijing conference on women, 17 countries have liberalized their abortion laws, while three have tightened restrictions (including, most recently, Nicaragua, where abortion is now illegal, even to save the woman's life -- thank you, Daniel Ortega). The bad news is that, due to population growth, the percentage of abortions that are unsafe has increased since 1995.

The big takeaway from the Lancet article is this: There is basically only one thing that lowers the rate of abortion for more than the minute and a half it takes women to figure out how to evade a new legal restriction: contraception. The countries with the lowest abortion rates, like the Netherlands, have few abortion restrictions and lots of birth control. Consider Eastern Europe. Under communism, abortion was virtually the only family planning method. As contraception has become more available, the abortion rate has plummeted -- from 90 in 1995 to 44 in 2003. Indeed, Eastern Europe accounts for almost the entire worldwide decline in abortion in the period covered by the study. Meanwhile, for all our storm and stress, with women in many states having to jump through more hoops than a circus tiger, the decline in the U.S. abortion rate has been small.

more...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/337039_focus28.html

[Der Blaue Engel]

1. K&R

:kick:

[me b zola]

2. K and fifth R

[Warren DeMontague]

3. If people are really concerned about abortion rates, they should support access to birth control.

Seems like a no-brainer, right?

But surprise! The major "pro-life" organizations in this country are all universally opposed to most major forms of contraception, if not the concept of contraception itself. Part and Parcel of the "pro-life" agenda in this country is the criminalization of birth control, followed, presumably by the criminalization of ALL non-procreative fucking along with "biblical law" punishments (stoning) for "crimes" like being gay, blasphemy, etc.

The anti-choice people are solidly behind pharmacists who dispense lectures about Jesus to women instead of filling their BC prescriptions. The HLA plank in the GOP platform would outlaw the birth control pill... It's not about "saving babies", it's about running people's lives.

[Triana]

5. Ah the pro-birth, wrong-wing

Trying to control women since the beginning of Time.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. The bottom line is that what individuals do with their own bodies is THEIR OWN business.

Too many people with all kinds of agendas think they're entitled to tell other people what they can or cannot do with their own bodies.

The bottom line is, the control freaks among us need to stop trying to make other peoples' decisions for them.

[baldguy]

4. The sad, sick fact is

that allowing more women to die from illegal abortions isn't a problem for the "pro-life" crowd. In fact, its a feature.

[MountainLaurel]

14. You're right

Sadly enough.

[Hekate]

6. KnR No-brainer, most compassionate solution, bitterly contested by those who want to punish women

And regrettably, this topic is major flame-bait here. Thanks for the informative post.

Hekate

[NMMNG]

7. And that's why "Pro-Life" is really "Pro-birth"

Because they also continue to oppose contraception at every turn. They not only want to make abortion illegal, they want to make contraception illegal too. They want to make women nothing more than slaves to their reproductive systems. Mere brood sows.

[kimmylavin]

8. Perfect quote:

"The legal status of abortion doesn't predict whether abortions occur. It predicts whether they are safe."

And that's it right there, isn't it?

The only reason to change the legal status of abortion is to make it less safe, and thus punish those who would choose to have one.

Compassionate conservatism strikes again...

[Elspeth]

10. The studies have always said this and always continue to say this

But the RW doesn't care if women die. They never did.

[truedelphi]

11. Why are we fighting the fights we've already won?

It's one step forward and two steps back.

I was once ardently anti-abortion (For myself mind you - it's your body not mine)

But after a miscarriage that almost took my life, when the local hospital would not admit me, I became curious as to how that could happen.

My research got me an Answer: under the restrictive laws of the State of Illinois circa 1972 - the hospital could have lost its license if it had turned out that my miscrriage was the result of my attempt to self-abort.

Since the young 20 something resident couldn't determine whether my miscarriage was nature' s plan for me or a choice on my part - I was sent home to die.

I have been fervently pro-choice ever since.

[Hekate]

12. Women of my mother's era talked about "having a D&C",meaning the post-miscarriage medical procedure

It was SOP to do a D&C to make sure everything was cleaned out all right. Now it seems to be only associated with abortions, thanks to rabid pro-birthers who would rather a woman died than allow her to control her own body. Every zygote more sacred in their minds than already-existing women and children.

I'm so sorry you had that experience. I feel as you do: that I don't think I could have had an abortion myself. But I think the difference between the so-called Right to Lifers and women like you and me is that we have a sense of imagination, and we can imagine circumstances in which we or other women would find the procedure a necessity. My mother had two life-threatening miscarriages of her own when I was still small, much hemmoraghing. Jeez.

I myself acknowledge the role sheer luck has played in my reproductive life: I've never been impregnated through rape, as one woman I know was, and I never had a life-threatening illness during pregnancy, as a friend of mine did who contracted a fast-moving cervical cancer during her first trimester. Another friend of mine, a devout Catholic, asked me in all sincerity if the unborn baby of the cancer victim could have been saved, as though it made sense to hold off a life-saving hysterectomy for another 6 months.

The Goddess knows my mother desired her children, as I desired mine. But human women are not brood mares, and by all that's holy we have the right to make our own decisions in the matter.

Hekate

[truedelphi]

15. But human women are not brood mares...

And we certainly should be treated as well as a brood mare! A rancher with an expensive mare carefully balances out the deserved right of his mare to live above a risky chance that holding off on a hysterectomy MIGHT allow both mare and foal to survive.

Several yrs after the miscarriage, I went on to have a healthy (born at home) son who is now out pro-creating with his wife. It's just sad that so many women thirty years ago were mistreated.

And at least I survived due to the rare visit of my own mother the day the hospital sent me home. (She threw me in her car with my husband and we went to the hospital where my pediatrican practiced medicine - he performed a D & C and eventually I went home - weighing all of 87 lbs the day of my release.)


Speaking of mares, the notion that current day women might suffer an equal or worse fate gives me nightMARES.

[usaftmo]

13. What the right-wingers fail to understand is

that abortions will happen regardless of their attempts to legally restrict/eliminate. Before Roe v. Wade thousands of women were dying each year due to self-abortions or shoddy medical practices.

There are some things that will happen in society no matter what the rightwing nutjobs try to stop.

Although I'm a man (last time I checked), each woman should have the freedom to choose which decision is best for her and the child. I don't like the thought of the right-wingers forcing their narrow viewpoint into law making everyone suffer.

Ok, turning off soap-box now...
:rant: