Women Who Have Abortions Are Mothers : Mike the Mad Biologist

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Women Who Have Abortions Are Mothers

Posted on: January 17, 2008 5:52 PM, by Mike

61% of women who have abortions already have children. So much for the 'irresponsible slut' propaganda. By way of Jill at Feministe, I found this Guttmacher Institute report (italics mine):

The majority (61%) of U.S. women who have abortions are already mothers, more than half of whom have two or more children. In many cases, women choose abortion because they are motivated to be good parents. Women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do; women who already have children want to be responsible and take care of their existing children.
"We found that consideration of motherhood issues in abortion decision-making falls into two broad areas: responsibilities for existing children and the 'ideal' conditions of motherhood," says Rachel K. Jones, senior researcher with the Guttmacher Institute. "Among those women with children, the most commonly cited reason for choosing to have an abortion was the concern that having another child would compromise the care given to existing children. Women felt that they were already stretched thin financially, emotionally and physically--and they wanted to put the children they already had front and center. Two-thirds of women who gave this answer were at or below the poverty line and received little help from their partners."

In addition, many of the women surveyed made direct and indirect references to the "ideal" conditions of motherhood, expressing the view that children are entitled to stable and loving families, financial security, and a high level of care and attention. Because the women were unable to provide those conditions at the time, they did not feel they were in a position to have a child or, if they were already mothers, an additional child.

"Many of these women were already raising children in situations that were less than ideal, and when faced with the possibility of bringing another child into this environment, they preferred to wait until they were in a better situation to be good parents," says Jones. "These women believed that it was more responsible to terminate a pregnancy than to have a child whose health and welfare could be in question."

Silly wimmens! I bet they're sluts or sumthin' and not really 'mothers.' Seriously, when you read the article, what is surprising was that nearly a quarter of women unsolicited suggested that they thought putting a child up for adoption and therefore not knowing his or her fate would be more guilt-inducing than having an abortion.

That puts a bit of a damper on the whole 'post-abortion' depression thing...

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Comments

Yabut Representative Martin Scott came around to make a comment on a post I had made dealing with Huckanuts timely visit to Georgia and said that a bunch of cells has "A Constitutional Right to a Birthday? He has a Creator on his side of the argument, scolds the bad ol' acitivist Supreme Court Justices, brings in the slavery card and a bunch of other emotional garbage...... (second post as member "Pro-Human Life")

Robert Hatcher vs. Huckanut - Pending House Resolution 536
http://www.techimo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=197708

Do you mean to tell me that there is data out there that doesn't support his ideology? Shocking!

Thanks for the link to this report. Added to the thread.

Posted by: Gene Goldring | January 17, 2008 8:23 PM

Heck, even the Bible doesn't support his ideology. The whole "unborn baby" bit is a later development.

Posted by: The Ridger | January 18, 2008 8:49 AM

um, there's plenty of free contraception available to those who are sexually active and don't want children. If they've had a child before, they should have learned the lesson. I think this proves they are more irresponsible.

Posted by: Kyle | January 18, 2008 9:53 AM

The pill is not 100% effective and neither are safes Kyle. Cultural training can also be a problem when faced with human needs of the sexual nature. Lack of preventative measures.

I had to update my thread with Huckanuts latest speech. It appears Huckanut must have either used Martin Scotts ramblings from the "A Constitutional Right to a Birthday?" piece or Scott had previous knowlege of Huckanut's speech. The Huckster used the slavery card in his speech.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080118/ts_alt_afp/usvote2008huckabeegay;_ylt=AqMMW0GbFGGUIwd1yGqe6.o7Xs8F

Posted by: Gene Goldring | January 18, 2008 10:53 AM

I happen to volunteer for a Care-Net Pregnancy Center here in Rio Rancho, NM, so I know all the stats and it's sad that we have chosen abortion as a form of birth control. The only safe sex is to have no sex at all until marriage, but we know that most will not choose that course of action and that's why we have so many people with life threatening sexually transmitted diseases. Did you know that Good Housekeeping shows that Planned Parenthood is the #1 abortion provider in the world? Their condoms are the worst on the market, their birth control pills are the least effective and their pregnancy tests are the least accurate. Go figure.

Posted by: Mark Tross | January 18, 2008 12:27 PM

Well Mark, Planned Parenthood is picking up where your ministries ideology fails.

You make it sound as if Planned Parenthood is only in the business of providing abortions. If groups like yours did a little more towards educating folks about contraception as well as abstinence-only maybe their wouldn't be so many STD cases and abortions. The facts are in about the failure of abstinence-only programs. Many school boards have recognised this failure and are now dropping out of funding for such reality lacking ideas and opting for a more comprehensive teaching of abstinence-only "and" contraception. Get a grip on reality because at the moment your views are part of the problem, not the solution.

Posted by: Gene Goldring | January 18, 2008 1:29 PM

Mark Tross:

Their condoms are the worst on the market, their birth control pills are the least effective and their pregnancy tests are the least accurate. Go figure.

I've been hearing this claim for years, and I've been asking for evidence for years, and no-one has ever offered any. It is, you see, a lie.

Posted by: llewelly | January 18, 2008 1:57 PM

"Their condoms are the worst on the market, their birth control pills are the least effective and their pregnancy tests are the least accurate. Go figure."

Really Tross? You mean Planned Parenthood has researched, developed, manufactured and distributed their own brand of condoms and pregnancy tests? They have developed, manufactured, paid tens of millions of dollars for years of clinical trials on, obtained FDA approval for and distributed their own brand of birth control pills?

Kyle: Note that the women in this study were at or near the poverty line. Women in these financial circumstances often do not have consistent access to affordable birth control pills/devices/shots. The key words here being consistent and affordable.

Posted by: Constance Reader | January 18, 2008 2:52 PM

Well if they're not consistent and affordable, that is the real problem. Let's just cut the debate about abortions and solve it. Abstinence only is foolish, but so is letting abortion become the "go-to" method. I was pro-choice for many years, but I feel it's gotten out of hand. I think both sides are fighting a needless battle. Let's take some money from our War on Everything(drugs/oil/terrorists/whatever) and put it towards education and contraception.

Posted by: Kyle | January 18, 2008 5:01 PM

I was pro-choice for many years, but I feel it's gotten out of hand.

Being as abortion rates are falling, I can ony assume that you think that *women having a choice* is what is getting out of hand.

I will forgo my usual response for something polite.

Go play in traffic.

Posted by: Graculus | January 21, 2008 10:48 AM

Thanks for putting words in my mouth, adding nothing to a discussion, and generally being a moron.

Posted by: Kyle | January 21, 2008 12:30 PM

Thanks for putting words in my mouth, adding nothing to a discussion, and generally being a moron.

Well, what about falling abortion rates is "getting out of hand" then?

More importantly, I seriously have to wonder about the claims that abortion is being used as a first-resort birth control. I have no numbers, but in my experience, birth control is relatively inexpensive and medical procedures of any sort are spectacularly expensive. I have no first hand experience with abortion prices, but I can't think of a good reason why they'd be any different. Are these people just really bad at making rational financial decisions, or am I missing an important piece of data?

Posted by: Troublesome Frog | January 21, 2008 2:21 PM

Kyle,

I have to say, until you're a woman confronted with this decision, while you have the right to speak your opinion you have no right to enforce that opinion on uterus-bearing Americans.

I got pregnant at 23 after having protected sex with a man I'd known for more than a year and had been dating for several months. I had just graduated from college and was working for less than $14k/yr as a cub reporter on a weekly paper. Motherhood at that stage of my life would have been ludicrous - I was neither emotionally nor financially ready for it.

I had an abortion on the first day it was medically viable to do so - they will not perform an abortion before the 7th week because of the risk of missing the microscopic pregnancy.

I have now been married for 16 years and am the proud mom of a 9 y.o. son. We waited until we were financially stable enough to buy a house and begin saving for college before I went off the pill.

Abortion was not a form of post-hoc birth control for me - it was a life preserver. I did what I was supposed to to prevent pregnancy and the method (sponge) failed. Before I had sex that fateful night I had not had sex for more than a year, because I'd been too busy with school and work to get involved with anyone to that level of intimacy.

More often than not, women seeking abortions are careful, thoughtful individuals dealing morally the best way they know how with a difficult situation. Let's worry about the welfare of the actual extant humans suffering, in this country and others, before we start pouncing on women for trying to keep themselves and their families healthy and well cared for.

Posted by: slim | January 21, 2008 2:46 PM

Thanks for putting words in my mouth,

Well, that beats where you pulled your words out of originally, which would be the other end of the alimentary system.

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