Can abortion rates be reduced organically?

[MSC]

What i mean by this question;

What positively beneficial policies could be enacted to organically lower abortion rates, by improving the quality of womens choices, without making abortions illegal or unjustifiably restricted?

What sort of changes to social attitudes would need to happen in order for policies like these to be popular?

[swansont]

Access to birth control would be big.

Not misrepresenting what birth control is (e.g. calling it an abortifacient when it’s not) would be a good social change.

This seems pretty obvious, but is opposed by some so-called pro-life proponents. Which suggests the ones opposed to contraception have an agenda beyond abortion.

[MSC]

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

Not misrepresenting what birth control is (e.g. calling it an abortifacient when it’s not) would be a good social change.

Yup! That's one I didn't think of but was impacted by personally. Doc put my ex on birth control after we had our daughter, messed with her hormones, milk dried up. They never told us that would happen. I mean formula is fine but it definitely got to my ex as she was only able to breastfeed for a short time and not very much either. 

That is a big one; what about family and community social policies that introduce more support systems, reduced childcare costs and tackle the fixable reasons that contribute to why some women choose to get abortion in the first place? 

[StringJunky]

Abortion is a luxury of the relatively rich. They can afford to not have them. In economically poor countries, children are required to help their elders in old age. That's the de facto support system there. Why do those unborn in affluent societies need to be saved, and their parents 'supported' when they aren't wanted? Is there some moral imperative to save every fertilised egg?

Perhaps that altruistic support-energy is better directed at those babies already born in Africa etc.

Edited August 9, 2023 by StringJunky

[swansont]

I’m not sure how support systems are going to be overly effective in keeping people from having sex. They would seem to be geared toward helping with families, which might help, but only for people for whom the lack of support is the reason for an abortion. How prevalent is that?

One social change would be getting men to be more receptive to the responsibility of birth control. Condom use can also be tied to reducing the chances of contracting an STD.

 

11 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Is there some moral imperative to save every fertilised egg?

Some Christian groups act like it is, but AFAICT it’s not supported by the Bible. 

[CharonY]

There is also quite a bit of overlap between anti-abortion group and moral sentiments that want to control women's reproduction. I remember polls showing correlation between folks wanting women to have sex primarily for reproduction (rather than, e.g. recreation, which seems to be fine for men). 

But going back to OP, key elements are essentially giving folks the tools to have (or not to have) kids on their own terms. I.e. better control of when they get pregnant (including mentioned access to contraception, better and genuine family planning, but also things like better sexual education), but also support to be able to raise kids, if that is what folks want. 

 

[mistermack]

Free contraception for all, no questions asked. Free contraception advice for all, no questions asked. Free counselling for anyone who wants it. The world is overpopulated. All that stuff should be free. Tax religious organisations to pay for it all. They've been tax-free for far too long.

[MSC]

40 minutes ago, CharonY said:

but also support to be able to raise kids, if that is what folks want. 

See it is this last part that I don't see much of. I'm not suggesting every egg needs to be saved, I just want women to have better quality choices. Some women I've spoken to, have cited this lack of support as being a primary factor in their decision to seek an abortion and have confessed to feeling guilty about it, even though I don't believe they have any reason to feel guilty for practicing bodily autonomy. 

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Abortion is a luxury of the relatively rich. They can afford to not have them. In economically poor countries, children are required to help their elders in old age. That's the de facto support system there. Why do those unborn in affluent societies need to be saved, and their parents 'supported' when they aren't wanted? Is there some moral imperative to save every fertilised egg?

Perhaps that altruistic support-energy is better directed at those babies already born in Africa etc.

Not all women are the same, not all women seek abortions because they want them, but because the quality of their other choices is so low. 

You or I can start a thread about poverty in Africa and other less affluent places, but that doesn't mean I'm going to play favourites over which issues I do and do not speak about. There are kids in poverty everywhere and this demarcation between 1st, 2nd and 3rd world is pretty unfair to kids everywhere, going through adverse experiences. Why should any child be thought of as lesser than? Why can't I want conditions to be improving on every continent and be multifaceted in my approach if that is what I choose to do? Abortion today, starvation tomorrow, gun crime the next day etc. 

For example; another contributing factor in why (b)Some(/b) women, seek abortions, is lack of faith in a foster and adoption system that leads to children, everywhere, being abused by people they are supposed to be able to trust. 

We ought not to paint women as being all singularly motivated in why they seek an abortion. I mean, some people don't even want to have kids for the same reasons, so you'd think the inverse is true also.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Which suggests the ones opposed to contraception have an agenda beyond abortion.

Of which, I am not, bring on the male pill as far as I'm concerned. 

Gonna have to be honest, if this is all just going to revolve around talk of contraception, I am gonna get pretty bored. But if this discussion isn't grabbing peoples attention, that's fine too. 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

I’m not sure how support systems are going to be overly effective in keeping people from having sex

Hey whoa now easy there dude... I am not for less sex lmao I'm talking about people having less abortions, that's not the same as less sex. 

Maybe it would help if I explained that I want to come up with convincing arguments to reasonable conservatives to back access to abortion by making them back more support for families.... but preaching to the choir here I guess lol but there, that's my reason for starting these discussions and just my general... obsession with discussing this stuff. Sue me. 

[mistermack]

2 minutes ago, MSC said:

Gonna have to be honest, if this is all just going to revolve around talk of contraception, I am gonna get pretty bored. But if this discussion isn't grabbing peoples attention, that's fine too. 

You can't dodge the obvious. Prevention is so much better than cure in every health area that I'm aware of.

I do get where you're coming from, I don't like abortion, I support the right to it reluctantly, it's a no-winner situation, and there's no right/wrong, just shades of grey as usual. A full term abortion really is killing a baby, I can't argue against that, but where it stops being a fetus and starts being a baby there is no answer to. I think the current rules in this country (UK) are neither right or wrong, but are as good a compromise as it's possible to reach.

[CharonY]

13 minutes ago, MSC said:

Gonna have to be honest, if this is all just going to revolve around talk of contraception, I am gonna get pretty bored. But if this discussion isn't grabbing peoples attention, that's fine too. 

Well that is the keystone to the whole issue, though. I.e. without contraception, you basically have no control when and if to get pregnant. And that will inevitably leave abortion as the only alternative if a child is not wanted.

14 minutes ago, MSC said:

See it is this last part that I don't see much of. I'm not suggesting every egg needs to be saved, I just want women to have better quality choices. Some women I've spoken to, have cited this lack of support as being a primary factor in their decision to seek an abortion and have confessed to feeling guilty about it, even though I don't believe they have any reason to feel guilty for practicing bodily autonomy. 

This is part is extremely complicated as it requires basically a complete overhaul in society. For example, if women want a career in a competitive field, it often means the end of it. Dropping out of a field and then getting back in after a while can be extremely hard. The main crutch that folks have been thinking about is better childcare, but even so, mostly women spend more time on children and household than men, for which children are less associated with progress in a career. There have been various attempts (including obligatory paternity leave) to even out the field and change perception, but it is a slow process with a lot of backsliding. 

But again, when it comes specifically to avoid abortion, the answer is obvious, improve control regarding when or if to get pregnant. If your question is how do you get folks to have more children that is a rather different issue.

[MSC]

3 minutes ago, CharonY said:

But again, when it comes specifically to avoid abortion, the answer is obvious, improve control regarding when or if to get pregnant. If your question is how do you get folks to have more children that is a rather different issue.

Unless it's possible to stretch my question to the contraception subject; what if there are people using contraception, that otherwise would choose not to, if having a child wasn't riskier to health,( @StringJunkyinfant and maternal mortality rates in third world countries is a prime example there, or the same rates for non-whites here in America) career, finances and social relationships? 

I suppose my question, is more about just helping people be freer to make the choices they want to make based on their own wants and desires, and less dictated by their external environment, so long as it's not hurting anybody. 

On a more personal note; I do want to have these discussions, with people I deem to be intelligent and thoughtful enough to provide good feedback and to challenge me, even if it does aggravate me sometimes, that's my issue. So the fact that I keep coming back here, after multiple yearly bans, me lashing out at feeling rejected by this community (just in my head taking shit too personal I guess), should convey to people here the respect and admiration I have for the people here... even Inow, who I enjoy reading when i just observe and do not engage. I don't come back to projects or people I don't care about. I try my hardest to remember there are people behind the screen. Sometimes I fail. I'm not trying to brown nose or whatever, I just really don't even want a filter at this point, so long as I feel like I can just keep having fun with the discussions too. 

17 minutes ago, CharonY said:

This is part is extremely complicated as it requires basically a complete overhaul in society.

I consider all this discussion valuable dialogical research that I will definitely publish one day. Not to try to overhaul, just to sow seeds of whatever weird af ideas come out of mine or others heads that are gonna be useful to future peoples, and contribute something. None of it is even original when you think about it, just people endlessly paraphrasing and trying to explain what some old dead dude said before language had evolved enough for people to understand wtf he was trying to say (I got you big W, much love!).

Anyone here heard of G.E. Moore or know anything about his moral philosophy?

[CharonY]

5 minutes ago, MSC said:

Unless it's possible to stretch my question to the contraception subject; what if there are people using contraception, that otherwise would choose not to, if having a child wasn't riskier to health,( @StringJunkyinfant and maternal mortality rates in third world countries is a prime example there, or the same rates for non-whites here in America) career, finances and social relationships? 

I am not sure what the core thought here is, to be honest. Obviously having a child always has some impact, and it is impossible to entirely remove them from the equation, unless we are making a spherical-cow-in-vacuum type argument. Having a child always impacts health, even with the best care, for example. You always have to (want to?) spend time with it. At minimum, you have to take responsibility for another life, so there is no way to decouple having a child from these elements. The only true freedom from having to deal with a child, is, well, not having one.

 

 

[MSC]

3 minutes ago, CharonY said:

spherical-cow-in-vacuum

You'll have to explain that one to me, went right over my head. 

3 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Having a child always impacts health, even with the best care, for example. You always have to (want to?) spend time with it. At minimum, you have to take responsibility for another life, so there is no way to decouple having a child from these elements. The only true freedom from having to deal with a child, is, well, not having one.

Need to. Want doesn't even begin to become close to describing how much parents feel they need to be around their kids. 

I'm not sure why you're not getting everything it is I'm trying to say, but I'll think about how I can present it better. 

What I'm not saying; People need to have more babies, there should be less access to contraception, parents need less time with their kids.

What I am saying; The improvement of the quality of life for lower income kids, from any place in the world, doesn't end at more contraception. It ends when the conditions for bringing children into the world are better, not so there are more or less, just so that people have more freedom to choose what it is they want to do. So women can choose a career and kids, or just a career and no kids, if that is what they want, so that dads and mothers stay in their kids lives and aren't forced to give them up because they couldn't afford the basics or because financial stressed tore apart a relationship or marriage. 

These aren't problems you can just throw condoms at. 

[Sensei]

18 minutes ago, MSC said:

These aren't problems you can just throw condoms at. 

Some said, if we would have condoms, we would not have Hitler,

some said, if we would have condoms, we would not have Stalin,

some said, if we would have condoms, we would not have Putin..

[MSC]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

but are as good a compromise as it's possible to reach.

Thats my point of disagreement, although I do value that you get where some of the sentiment of mine is coming from, but the lack of good quality choices actually does bother me more than whether or not more or less abortions are happening, so long as I think people have gotten a fair shake, I did rawls veil of ignorance, and while life isn't fair, I just choose not to believe that it can't be made just a little bit fairer.

I live in the USA now and have seen the poverty here, but experienced it first hand in being born in and growing up Scotland. I've heard about it across the world from people all over the world. I'm a hard cosmopolitan tbh. Suffering and coming to harm in America, africa, asia, wherever it's all the same to me, bad. 

I can be an overly sensitive, pretentious, grandiose, bleeding heart, angry asshole sometimes. I'm not unaware of this shit, I know how I sound to people... I guess I just don't care? Like I care if I hurt people and feel guilty later and have a healthy amount of shame. But I just don't really care what people think of me anymore nor do I even want to pay much attention to what people think my intentions are. I feel like I'm only a bleeding heart, because I feel like, humanities heart is bleeding, hemorrhaging even. This, talking about it, is one of the ways I cope. That's all. 

Just now, Sensei said:

Some said, if we would have condoms, we would not have Hitler,

some said, if we would have condoms, we would not have Stalin,

some said, if we would have condoms, we would not have Putin..

I don't want to get rid of contraception lol but updoot, that was funny af

[Sensei]

2 minutes ago, MSC said:

I don't want to get rid of contraception lol but updoot, that was funny af

..it was funny for mortal beings.. for gods it was absolute serious..

 

[TheVat]

I enjoy your questions and your quest, M.  My OP answer is a bit simplistic, and immensely complex in the implementation: fix poverty.  But it's the answer I keep circling back to.  It seems to me that most of the problems that people are pinpointing here flow from impoverishment.  Both economic and informational.  Empower young women with knowledge, self-confidence, freedom to choose their path...and abortion would be rare.  Teach young men respect for that process.

[MSC]

7 minutes ago, Sensei said:

..it was funny for mortal beings.. for gods it was absolute serious..

 

Ahhh yes but you see, while some people like to shine as bright as the gods, I'm quite different in that respect, I prefer to shine greater than the gods 🤣

2 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I enjoy your questions and your quest, M.  My OP answer is a bit simplistic, and immensely complex in the implementation: fix poverty.  But it's the answer I keep circling back to.  It seems to me that most of the problems that people are pinpointing here flow from impoverishment.  Both economic and informational.  Empower young women with knowledge, self-confidence, freedom to choose their path...and abortion would be rare.  Teach young men respect for that process.

Boom. Well, rarer is my best guess. I don't pretend to know what would happen to the abortion rates, if a few more ideals were realised. What is science without an experiment though? I mean that's all law and policy really is, experiments in ethics. It just sucks that they are very costly when they go wrong. Like really sucks. 😕

[swansont]

2 hours ago, MSC said:

Hey whoa now easy there dude... I am not for less sex lmao I'm talking about people having less abortions, that's not the same as less sex. 

But it’s offered as a solution. There has been a big push for “abstinence only” sex education in the US, and it’s a disaster. As CharonY said, effective sex education would have an impact.

[MSC]

16 minutes ago, swansont said:

But it’s offered as a solution. There has been a big push for “abstinence only” sex education in the US, and it’s a disaster. As CharonY said, effective sex education would have an impact.

Agreed. I got effective sex education. Without getting into tmi, I applied the knowledge and had no teenage pregnancies and no health problems. I doubt I'd have been so lucky with abstinence only models. If abstinence is just one thing mentioned along with all other safety knowledge, that's just a fuller lesson to me. 

Fire safety works the same way; don't start fires if you don't need to, but if you're cooking, camping or spill water on an outlet, here is how to put out the fire. 

What you said about the push for abstinence only programs, and indeed politically enraged infringement within education more broadly, are really big problems. That's why I'm drawn to the diplomatic route of saying "Hey you couple of reasonable conservatives, independents and moderates, if I had a way of reducing abortion rates without making abortion illegal, will some of ya hear me out and not vote for the dark age nutbags during elections, if I'm right?" 

I just feel there is a dire need for a bit more creative imagination within political and moral discourse. The usual ideas just aren't cutting it anymore. The discussions need to evolve. They are stagnating. 

Lets talk about education, specifically womens access to primary, secondary and higher education across the world. People in countries where women have better access to education and better access to well paying jobs, tend to have less kids, but the quality of life of those children tends to be better off than poorer families, where women are less educated, and have more children. 

I mean, that isn't always the case, you have the exceptions of better educated women wanting more kids due to other influencing factors like just liking kids due to personality. Then less educated women wanting less kids for the opposite reasons, and people from all walks who just don't want kids at all. 

And I'm rambling. I've actually been waiting on a bus from Cincinnati to Chicago for over 12 hours. So I've had nothing better to do than to just... talk. 

[Sensei]

Quote

Can abortion rates be reduced organically?

Abortion means that someone does not want/is not ready to be a parent, at that particular moment..

Which is somewhat understandable. A child should be wanted and desired by parents, not unwanted, and rejected..

If someone is happy after seeing a positive pregnancy test result, he or she is ready to be a parent.

 

ps. Priests and nuns are in abortion mode all day long.. they kill their own children, day after day..

 

Do you have any idea that some religious extremists are making graves for their sanitary napkins?

https://www.google.com/search?q=Menstrual+Waste+Management+graves

 

Quote

Can abortion rates be reduced organically?

..stopping menstruation is not a big deal..

6 hours ago, MSC said:

What positively beneficial policies could be enacted to organically lower abortion rates, by improving the quality of womens choices, without making abortions illegal or unjustifiably restricted?

Why would you want to force someone to have children they hate? For example, from rape? Or a child with someone he/she really hates.. ?

Child should be awaited, and loved.. not hated..

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Sensei

[MSC]

20 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Why would you want to force someone to have children they hate? For example, from rape? Or a child with someone he/she really hates.. ?

I don't. 🤨 Really don't understand how anyone could read that in what I wrote. But I definitively never said anything about force, I've only specifically spoken about choice. Women's choices. 

25 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Abortion means that someone does not want/is not ready to be a parent, at that particular moment..

For some people. 

[richards01]

The reduction in abortion rates translates into a change in the projected lifetime prevalence of abortion from one in three women in the United States to one in four. Such a rapid reduction is of tremendous public health importance, and careful consideration of the causes of the decline is merited

[Phi for All]

8 hours ago, richards01 said:

The reduction in abortion rates translates into a change in the projected lifetime prevalence of abortion from one in three women in the United States to one in four.

Citation?

[StringJunky]

35 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Citation?

 

Quote

The reduction in abortion rates translates into a change in the projected lifetime prevalence of abortion from one in three women in the United States to one in four. Such a rapid reduction is of tremendous public health importance, and careful consideration of the causes of the decline is merited

Dramatic Decreases in US Abortion Rates: Public Health Achievement or Failure?
Diana Greene Foster, PhD corresponding author

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5678419/