A response to Anna. I'll try to make this brief as possible as abortion arguments become very tedious very quickly.
On counting abortions, perhaps the researchers should be more modest in their estimations, or, as my post suggested, if they are going to make large estimations they should give an account as to why they chose the numbers they did rather then simply saying, "We talked to experts."
Anna demands that somebody, SOMEBODY, answer her call as to how restricting abortions furthers women's health. Yet in her original post she wrote:
So, to those of you who insist upon another attempt to outlaw abortion in South Dakota: please be upfront with the citizens about what you're actually hoping to accomplish. Because preventing abortion isn't what you're after.
It is only when challenged in the "comments" that Anna, unwilling to defend this initial position, shifted her ground to the defense of women's health. For, if even if the study were accurate, the worst one could say about pro-lifers is that they are mistaken that restrictive abortion laws will lower the abortion rate. But Anna, unwilling to concede sincerity in her opponents, charged them with bad faith. She insinuates that pro-lifers know legislative efforts to lower the abortion rate are fruitless, yet continue to advocate them anyway because their "real" motive is hatred of women. A good policy of argumentation is to assume your opponent is sincere in his claims until you have ample evidence otherwise. Anna, unable to find such evidence of insincerity on the part of pro-lifers because, might I suggest, there is none to be found, chose to change the argument to women's health.
So, how might restrictions on abortion actually further women's health? Let's name a few.
1. According to the study cited by Anna, there are 42 million abortions in the world each year. While I dispute that number, let's take it as given. That means each year 21 million females are killed in utero. I'd say that's bad for their health. Now, Anna does not think this is a human being, much less a human being with a sex. We will not solve that argument here, although I point out that the whole X and Y chromosome thing occurs at fertilization. But the point is that from the point of view of pro-lifers, you have a human being at some early stage of pregnancy and thus abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. Thus they think that ending abortion is good for the health of those who are not being killed (note, for example, the millions of female babies aborted in China simply for being female). Again, Anna does not think a human life is being taken in abortion. Pro-lifers do, sincerely. This being the case, let us argue about the when human life begins and what criteria we might use to determine when it begins instead of arguing about who is most morally pure regarding the health of women. I do not doubt Anna's sincere commitment to women's health, despite the fact that she advocates a procedure which, in my opinion, kill unborn females (and males, of course). So why cast aspersions on the motives of pro-lifers?
2. There is the (disputed) contention that abortion is connected to incidence of breast cancer.
3. By promoting an ethic of irresponsibility in sexuality, the abortion culture has given men a what they have always wanted, license to be promiscuous, knowing that should they "slip one past the goalie" the woman can always get an abortion. This is one of several factors that have, in my opinion, led to serious psychological harm for untold numbers of women. By contributing to the liberation of sex from reproduction, abortion has given greater freedom to men to use women for their sexual gratification, discarding them when they are tired of them. This, among other things, has led to an increase in depression, self-mutilation, anorexia, bulimia, etc., among women.
4. Some postulate that the abortion culture promotes child abuse. By devaluing innocent life, and by terming innocent life and a thing to be discarded when it no longer serves our interests. Some philosophers, such as Peter Singer, go one step further. Singer holds that it is not humans who have rights but "persons." The unborn, not having the traits to qualify it as a person, thus has no rights and can be killed at our convenience. The same, Singer argues, goes for infants and some elderly (e.g., Alzheimer's patients). BTW, the human vs. person distinction was also trumpeted by John Kerry in the 2004 election. I do not suggest that Singer's position is popular among pro-choicers, but one can see how the efforts to define away the natural rights of the unborn might lead to some very unsettling conclusions.
Anna, I suspect, will be unconvinced by these four points. But there they are. Even if Anna finds all four arguments to be in gross error, then, I suggest, she should argue why pro-lifers are mistaken in their opinions rather than questioning their motivations. I know a lot of pro-lifers. In my college days I interned for a large pro-life interest group in Minnesota. Not once have I heard anyone claim anything other than a sincere devotion to ending abortion and saving unborn human life. I have not encountered the pro-lifer who was unconcerned about women's health. So let's discuss the merits of arguments, not who is the more morally pure.
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