With these several threads about abortion, I have come to these conclusions: abortions, or termination of pregnancy, are, unfortunately, a necessary evil in human society. Banning them outright will put the dangerous termination procedure back to the underground. However, there is a desire among many, if not all, to change the current conditions in this society in order to reduce the need for abortions, thus avoiding the situations occuring in Russia and China. Can any of you here in SDMB who argued eloqently over the legality and morality of abortion share and hash out your plans for reducing the amount of abortions in the country, and around the world?
Sex education and free birth control for indigent women.
Actively promote and encourage anal and oral sex.
Uh, you busy next weekend?
Marc
Why, are you in danger of getting pregnant? 
They are wellknown to be just awful - like using a ziplock bag. So, while I agree with LunaSea, you have to add consumer friendly contraceptives to the list.
I had touched on this subject in a thread I started about things that are wrong with the democrat party. Ideas that I had after spending about 5 minutes thinking about it were…
1 sex education
2 free birthcontrol
3 federal/state tax credits for parents who adopt children
4 federal/state stream lining of the sdoption process
5 a national tv campaign of “choose adoption not abortion”
6 national/state adoption database of avialiable children
indirectly related issues that would make it easier for poor people to choose to keep their children, instead of choosing abortion…
1 national health insurance
2 progressive taxiation
3 raising the minimum wage
4 reducing the full time work week from 40 to 32 hours per week
Education, education, education!
This includes birth control education, too. IIRC, most schools are still not allowed to instruct about proper use of birth control (please someone correct me if I’m wrong about that).
The education should be mandatory, too, like math and English. No more of this signed permission slip crap. That is an idea whose time has looooong gone.
More “family life” type classes in school, too. Teach these kids what happens after the baby comes, and I don’t just mean changing diapers. The bills. The no-time-for-yourself. Don’t romanticize it. I’d eat broken glass for my family, but man, being married, working outside the home, and raising kids is hard freaking work, and kids need to learn that. It’s worthwhile, but it is the hardest thing a person can do.
And in those family life classes, it couldn’t hurt to teach boys and girls to solve conflicts with each other. Not ordinary conflict-resolution. I mean, married/committed relationship conflict resolution. Teaching them how to constructively communicate and solve problems, might increase the numbers of people involved in committed relationships and/or lower the divorce rate a little. Kids who have parents who are happy together, tend towards having good relationships themselves, because they’ve had a good role model to follow (please don’t misunderstand–there are many, many fabulous single parents out there, and my hat is off to the folks that can do it).
Finally, be there for your own kids. Let them know that you are willing to talk about anything and everything that they need to talk about. Initiate discussions on your own. Don’t freak if your kid brings up a topic that you may be squeamish about, regardless of what it is. And if your kid asks you a question that you honestly don’t know the answer to, be honest and tell them you don’t know, then help them find the answer from some other source. You’ll both learn something.
That’s my two cents!
Practice safe sex. Use condoms. Teach real sex in schools. Shut the religious minority the heck up.
Reducing the number of abortions? Simple. Put all pregnant women to death. :rolleyes:
Tracer, I asked for eloquence, not for such what you have written.
How to reduce abortions: Bring back Married With Children.
The great philosopher (and second only to Cecil in terms of intelligence) Al Bundy said that we should put all pregnant women in a single state. He suggest Idaho, but also suggested changing the name to “Pregnaho”. ::evil grin::
Sterilization?
Oh, how politically incorrect!
Immediately give any new mother $50,000
a year for life. Second child,increase it
to $100,000, etc.
Annie-Xmas wrote:
cough Welfare moms cough
capacitor wrote:
Wish in one hand, crap in the other, and see which one piles up faster.
Sneeze…if welfare moms got 50,000 a year per child…I’d be on welfare.
Can anyone find any UNBIASED statistics on how many abortions were performed last year? And how many is TOO MANY?
I think education has very little to do with teenagers getting pregnant. Teenagers know where babies come from. They also know that they SHOULD be practicing safe sex, which would also prevent pregnancies. But teenagers have this terrible habit of doing things and then thinking of the consequences later or not at all. I think young people these days know enough about sex to realize that it can result in pregnancy. It just all goes back to that implusive, risk taking behavior of youth.
Does anyone know of any links where you can actually get some fact based answers to these questions? I’d like to know how many abortions are performed on young people each year, that kind of thing.
I’m also interested in this subject quite a bit. Exactly what do the pro-life groups propose? Do they have any valid solutions other than celibacy or birth control?
Needs2know
I don’t think you can reduce the number of abortions without altering the way society views sex and childbearing. Sure, I’m a cynic, but I think you’ll have a hard time convincing people to abstain from sex; an abundance of cheap or free birth control, sans Catholic or other religious or philosophical objections to prevented pregnancies, would somewhat lessen the need for abortions, but I think in the end such plans would be costly and ineffective. Recreational sex will no doubt lead to unwanted pregnancies despite the best laid plans of men and women. Promoting adoptions, likewise, I think is an extravagant solution that only fills the world with surplus children. Bigger tax breaks or shorter work weeks for parents only discriminates against those who don’t have children.
Perhaps looking towards countries with low birth rates, like France, could provide some solutions. Of course France is has a socialist government and the birth rate is so low that the government pays women to get pregnant and outlaws vasectomies and has, if I’m not mistaken, one of the highest unemployment and highest tax rates in the world. So much for the French.
Personally, I think reducing the number of abortions is a lost cause. I’ll invert your supposition too, saying that increasing the number of abortions is a better solution. In a burgeoning population, especially among the poor who would be the least likely listen to abortion alternatives, abortion becomes the best recommendation before allowing women to give birth.
Ahhh, but this would be an option to reduce the number of abortions.
and you would “shut up” those you disagree with how?
do you also wish to shut up the gay minority?
…the black minority?
etc…
when you make dumb ass defamatory statements like that, it’s kind of hard to take anything seriously that you might have included in yor post
beagledave, you seem to specialize in taking offense rather than contributing to discussions.
The religious minority that claims that pregnancy, childbirth and childraising is a legitmate punishment for those who violate its sexual taboos, that consistently decry any attempt to educate children as to the nature of their bodies and emerging sexuality; such is the minority doing active harm to our society and to which I believe Skribbler refers.
If you are not such a person, you have no reason to take offense. If, however, the shoe fits…