Of course now that I have waded into the swamp too, for what it's worth:
--Renaming the thread does not imply that I have nothing to say about fatherhood or joint parenthood, only that I am not going to say it here.
--Does anyone have any theories WHY the definition of feminism in many quarters at least in the US has collapsed to litmus tests around one issue? What could thinking analysts of both genders do to keep that from happening? I totally agree with whoever pointed out class reasons for this, but I do not think class is the only issue.
--If I had time I would go look up some international comparative stats about abortion rates, measures of maternal and infant health, age of first sexual activity, domination of discussion by one or anther strand of thought. But since I am just extemporaneizing, I believe that countries in Europe report ages of first sexual activity similar to the US; it's just that people are more informed and responsible about birth control, as someone earlier mentioned so they have much lower abortion rates. (I would be curious how much education that achieves this behavior talks about family PLANNING as opposed to just preventing pregnancy.)
But I mention the better indicators of maternal and infant health here too to buttress a point made earlier about women who expect their children to survive tend to have fewer babies. Maybe the uncertainty of the US health care system also plays a role in people's decisionmaking: in many cases there is little or very uncertain payoff to planning, so why do it when you could be having babies instead?
--Now to Kelly's statistics: so far the discussion of the gestation age at which women have abortions has neglected a couple facts of technology and biology. First, an incredibly high percentage of conceptions (I believe the numbers are 30-50%) fail to implant or result in early miscarriages. Say 30 years ago, many of the women experiencing early miscarriages would not even necessarily have known or been sure they were pregnant unless, say, they had really bad morning sickness. But since the introduction of modern highly sensitive pregnancy tests, women know for sure that they are pregnant a lot sooner. And if the pregnancy is unwanted they go end it even if some percentage of those pregnancies would have ended on their own anyway.
I guess my point is a high rate of unwanted pregnancy probably indicates people are uninformed or unmotivated about birth control or are abdicating decisionmaking about anything but sex. However, I also think abortion statistics mask some pregnancies that would have ended in miscarriages anyway. Besides, I guess taking care of the babies who actually get born absorbs more than enough energy to keep me from getting totally misty-eyed about a WHOLE lot of prenatal might -have-beens.
DoreneC
In a message dated 1/31/2003 10:25:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, the-squeeze at pulpculture.org writes:
> At 11:08 PM 1/30/03 -0500, Dennis Perrin wrote:
> > > ***** Abortion is a right in Sweden and is free on request until
> > > the eighteenth week of pregnancy.
>
> 5% of abortions occur after 16 weeks (4% at 16-20 wks; 1% > 21 wks)
>
> 55.7% occur at less than 9 weeks
> 77.7% occur at less than 11 weeks
> 88.7% occur at 12 weeks or less
>
> Engaging in the same tactics that rightnutters do is really
> counterproductive. Not because the truth hurts, but because the link to the
>
> pic demonstrates a studious desire to remain ignorant of when, where, how,
> why women have abortions in this country OR a desire to ignore this
> knowledge in order to subtly shift the terms of the discussion to something
>
> that really isn't an issue.
>
> Had you posted about 6 and 11 week old undead babies, I might take you
> seriously because that would indicate that you don't need to be smacked on
> the tush with a klew by four. ( I would rub gently and pat a little
> afterward, though).
>
>
> kelley
>
>
>
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