Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
<snip>
> Um. Nathan, I am not sure what you are driving at here. That some women
> would carry to term if their life conditions were different seems no reason
> not to ensure full access to abortion in case they do not want to birth a
> child....
Because the present (and past) status of abortion rights affects poor (and even less affluent) women disporportionately, our efforts must focus on gaining abortion access for them. BUT it must be understood that under *all* conceivable economic conditions abortion must remain an unconditional right of all women. A sort of techonological utopianism is apt to blur the issue here: i.e., speculations as to the invention of a safe and certain method of birth control. But abortion is a certain method of birth control, and with proper allocation of medical resources would become safer: it is already safer than pregnancy). In the forseeable future abortion must remain an option for all women without challenge to their reasons. Even if raising a child ceased completely to be difficult, it would still have to be every woman's right to have an abortion simply to avoid the hassle of pregnancy. Without this right sexual equality will remain a chimera.
(Rakesh's post as a whole is one of the best on this topic.)
Carrol