basically, martin, you have managed to choose words that convey certain meanings, intended or not. it's hard to understand why you'd use the term fear or even unwillingness in the first place. by doing so you psychologize [render the issue distinctly a product of an individual psyche shaped by society rather than a product of-intrinsically, deeply and complexly constituted *by* --society. there's a huge difference there and, as ange often points out, the difference has tremendous implications because it positions you in certain ways such that you are blind to a whole host of issues, issues that people have been trying to point out to you but you blithely ignore as unimportant. [e.g., the sexist posturing in your comments]
furthermore, if you hadn't grasped, like chaz, what catherine's expression, looking for the right questions to ask my answers, means then i think if you reflect a bit on what questions you are asking your answers you might come to see that absolutely nothing in your discourse is self-evident and you might even come to see that you could ask entirely different and much more productive questions.
why, for ex, conceive of it as a fear of mothering? perhaps women have abortions simply because they don't want children and never have. maybe they're not the least bit afraid of mothering but chose to do something else altogether. maybe she has everything in the world going for her--money, prestige, time, etc etc--and simply doesn't want children. that's what abortion on demand means--abortion for any reason whatsoever. and what did you mean by 'unwilling'? hmmm? why posit it as something negative like that. you can see the difference between characterizing someone as unwilling to do something as opposed to choosing not do something? eh? you wonder why people have assumed sexism here?
furthermore, you did assume early on in *this* thread that children raised by mothers who did n't want them grew up to have criminal proclivities. your position demonstrates a profound indifference to the ways in which crime is socially constructed--crime rates are not objective, brute facts but reflect a society in which certain activities are defined as criminal and a world in which certain activities are penalized and prosecuted more among some groups than among others. [e.g., crack v. coke possession and punishment, targeting neighborhoods, driving while black, white collar crime v. crime conventionally defined, etc]
and just how did you make this leap anyway, what makes you assume that it is primarily because mothers are unwilling to bear children or are afraid of bearing children that this has some sort of impact on proclivity toward crime? why bother to go the same route as the wankers from the chicago school by linking crime [and people's fear of crime] with abortion and, to top it off, by engaging in a discourse that presumes that women must be afraid or unwilling to have children if they have abortions.
moreover, how is it possible for you to read minds now? you seem to think that if a woman initially doesn't want a child that if she has that child she'll continue to not want that child even after it's born.
finally, who cares. if you're looking for an indicator of "social health' then i must say that abortion rates are pretty piss poor indicators. i mean, if that's the model you want to go by, measuring society according to demographic data etc, then there are plenty of indicators that do a much better job of measuring social health than abortion does: educational attainment, monies spent on ojt, tax monies spent on schooling, quality of training in hospitals, daycare centers, schools, hours worked per week, subjective measurements of happiness and well being, etc etc. . to sum it up: you want to measure social health, but you seem to think that "willingness to mother" is some kind of measure of social health. there's quite a big gap between "social health" and "willingness to mother" and thus it's not a good indicator. it is also a sexist indicator insofar as the position you take assumes that willingness to mother is something we, as a society, ought to worry about. again, if you are really worried about "social health" then there are plenty of other things to measure.
>>Why are there so many sacrifices associated with mothering? Do you
>>think that there are reasons other than fear that might motivate a
>>woman not to become a mother, or become a mother again? Like go to
>>college or learn how to sculpt or, heaven forbid, trade junk bonds?
>>Do you think that maybe men should make a few more sacrifices and
>>women a few less? Or is it just their fate as women to sacrifice?
>
>Doesn't fear of not being able to go to college register on your meter?
>Or fear of not being able to partake of social opportunities? Do you
>think that all fear is the same as your fear? If fear is too loaded a
>term for your sensitivity I provided a few alternatives such as
>"unwillingness". Seems like you're in debate mode and I was merely
>offering an idea. You could have said "No thank you." instead of accusing
>me of wanting to gas babies, thank you.
>
>>
>>Uh, you mean feminists haven't used free abortion on demand as a
>>galvanizing issue? Or that feminists don't count?
>>
>>Sure it's a divisive issue. Lots of issues are divisive and rightly
>>so. The critique of capitalism and imperialism are divisive issues.
>>The abortion issue divides people with different views about the
>>social role of women.
>
>Bridging all of the sectors is the concept that I was presenting, not
>galvanizing the members of one particular sector. I don't have any
>particular ideas about the social role of women that I can distinguish
>from the social role of men, but as far as gender roles within the
>species - bearing children is the role of women. When they are unwilling
>to bear children because of social dynamics then you have an issue that
>can galvanize *all* sectors of the society regardless of their views of
>abortion as a particular violation of human rights of women or children.
>An issue that "galvanizes" *all* sectors is the particular feature of
>using "the abortion issue" as an index/barometer of social health.
>
>I'm certainly not the best spokesman for a point like this because I've
>managed to mis-communicate what is a simple and lucid concept. But
>unfortunately this wasn't the correct forum for what I was trying to do.
>
>fin, Martin
>
>