# Obama promises Pope to reduce abortions in US **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 12, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767 "2009-07-12T16:43:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/1 "2009-07-12T16:43:08Z")
[Link](http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5693XC20090710?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true) > [@](#): > > President Barack Obama promised Pope Benedict on Friday that he would do everything possible to reduce the number of abortions in the United States, the Vatican said. Should a US President really be making this kind of promise to the Pope? Firstly, it has nothing to do with the Pope anyway and secondly it has nothing to do with the Federal government whether a woman chooses to abort or not. Does Obama really plan to increase pressure on women not to abort? Or is this just talk to please the Pope, with no action intended at all? Anybody know Obama’s position on abortion? ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/2 "2009-07-12T16:48:43Z")
Fortunately for Obama, whether any policies “reduce abortion” is even harder to measure than whether the stimulus is working. And it’s even harder to enforce than Waxman-Markey CO2 reduction caps. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/3 "2009-07-12T16:56:34Z")
He didn’t promise he would reduce abortion, he promised he would _try_, but do not be alarmed. He is not talking about anti-abortion legislation, but about supporting policies which will reduce unwanted pregnancies in the first place. It was just an extremely diplomatic way to tell the pope that he’s going to pass out Jimmy hats in schools. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/4 "2009-07-12T16:58:07Z")
Decreasing the number of abortions has been on every Dem Presidential candidates platform since Clinton articulated the “legal, safe and rare” strategy. Here’s Obama during one of the Presidential debates: > [@](#): > > "…there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, ‘We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby’. Those are all things that we put in the Democratic platform for the first time this year, and I think that’s where we can find some common ground, because nobody’s pro-abortion. I think it’s always a tragic situation. We should try to reduce these circumstances. His promise to the Pope is just a reiteration of what’s been the boiler-plate Dem position on abortion since the 90’s. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/5 "2009-07-12T17:02:36Z")
Obama stance has always been strongly pro-choice, to the point that he has voted against “late-term abortion” bills when they have not provided for exceptions for cases in which the life or health of the mother is at risk. He is in favor of reducing abortions through education and contraception. Not “pressure not to abort,” but reduction of the likelihood of a woman getting pregnant in the first place. The Pope isn’t going to like the heavy emphasis on contraceptive access, but who cares what he thinks? ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/6 "2009-07-12T17:23:57Z")
And it IS possible to strongly reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. [I have linked to this stat before,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9586985&postcount=15) but a comparison between some western European countries and the US breaks down like this: **Percent who have not had intercourse by age 20:** (Boys Girls) Belgium 61 63 Netherlands 58 62 Germany 33 28 Norway 33 25 U K. 24 23 France 9 25 United States 12 16 **Percent of sexually active single 15 to 19-year olds using birth control:** Germany 95% United Kingdom 92 Netherlands 88 Norway 87 Sweden 79 Denmark 70 United States 56 **Teen pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers:** United States 98.0 United Kingdom 46.6 Norway 40.2 Canada 38.6 Finland 32.1 Sweden 28.3 Denmark 27.9 Netherlands 12.1 Japan 10.5 **Total teen abortions per 1,000 teenagers:** United States 44.4 Norway 21.1 Sweden 19.6 Denmark 18.2 Finland 17.9 United Kingdom 16.9 Canada 16.2 Japan 5.9 Netherlands 5.5 All Obama needs to do is adopt the strategy proven to WORK in those countries, which means: -more and better sex-ed -demystification of sex -better acess to birth control for teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/7 "2009-07-12T17:34:22Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Does Obama really plan to increase pressure on women not to abort? I think the notion is to do things that prevent unwanted pregnancies (e.g. better sex ed, access to cheap or free birth control). (ETA: I swear all these other responses weren’t here. vBelch.) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/8 "2009-07-12T19:05:57Z")
There’s a two-pronged approach to “reducing abortions”: Reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancies (sex ed and contraception, as per above) AND also make it less burdensome to keep and support the child (more access to health care, child care, education, etc.) The latter is in accord with the RCC’s current policy stance. The first, of course, is at odds with it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/9 "2009-07-12T19:22:38Z")
My outrage meter is registering about a “1” on this. If he really promised to do “everything possible”, then that was not a very smart thing to say. Still, I don’t see it as a big deal. I think most Americans would like to reduce the number of abortions just like we’d like to reduce the number of triple bipass surgeries. But the way you do that is through preventive measures, not by outlawing the procedures. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/10 "2009-07-12T20:10:19Z")
Following Roe, conceptions rose by nearly 30 percent, but births actually fell by 6 percent. So for every six fetuses aborted in the 1970s, five would never have been conceived except for Roe ![Link](http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=113780594296&h=WFT9m&u=sRurV&ref=mf) Also Freakonomics was wrong; abortion did not decrease crime, and it looks like it didn’t decrease unwanted children either. You can support it as a “rights” argument, but you can’t support it as a social improvement policy, and abortion did not decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies. But clearly there is a long way to go - and lots of low-hanging fruit, if you actually wanted to reduce the number of abortions as Obama promised. ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/11 "2009-07-12T22:02:54Z")
Of course the pope promised to do something about the pedophile priests abuse scandal, or killing of people in poor countries by by fighting condom distributiona and education. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/12 "2009-07-12T22:03:53Z")
Who’s arguing for abortion as a “social improvement policy?” Who has said that it decreases unwanted pregnancies? Your first stat is a gigantic false correlation, by the way, not there’s any way to measure “conceptions” in the first place, but the overall population has grown significantly since Roe, and the social stigmas against reporting them have decreased. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/13 "2009-07-12T22:11:10Z")
If he promised then he should not have any. Hope his wife is on board. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/14 "2009-07-13T03:09:42Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > If he promised then he should not have any. Hope his wife is on board. Do you even bother reading threads before you post? Obama’s goal is to reduce abortions by increasing sex education, contraception availability and assistance for parents. His goal is not to reduce abortion by outlawing abortions. Obama is firmly pro-choice. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/15 "2009-07-13T05:46:38Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > it has nothing to do with the Federal government whether a woman chooses to abort or not. Not according to congress or the courts. Roe v. Wade did not create an absolute right to an abortion. In fact it explicitly recognized that the state had a legitimate interest in protecting the life of the fetus. If you think the state of the law is (or should be) abortion on demand then you have another think coming. > [@](#): > > Does Obama really plan to increase pressure on women not to abort? Or is this just talk to please the Pope, with no action intended at all? Anybody know Obama’s position on abortion? I think he intends to reduce abortions by improving sex education and maybe passing out condoms. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/16 "2009-07-13T11:26:08Z")
I think Obama wants to teach personal responsibility, that could mean waiting until one is capable of rearing a child, or using a method of birth control that will work. Not just having sex when the woman or girl cannot conceive. Obama is not telling followers of the RCC (or others) that they must have an abortion or practice birth control. But that parents should not expect the state to support their children, there are cases where this is necessary, but responsible parenthood is the best way. In the case of a rapist, a woman should not reward him with a child, if she chooses to have the child for her own sake then that is a different matter. ---
**Author:** ![ashman165](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@ashman165](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ashman165)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/17 "2009-07-13T11:31:27Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > [Link](http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5693XC20090710?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true) > > Should a US President really be making this kind of promise to the Pope? Firstly, it has nothing to do with the Pope anyway and secondly it has nothing to do with the Federal government whether a woman chooses to abort or not. > > Does Obama really plan to increase pressure on women not to abort? Or is this just talk to please the Pope, with no action intended at all? Anybody know Obama’s position on abortion? I’m hoping that “reduce abortion” means “increase sex education and distribution of birth control”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/18 "2009-07-13T11:31:51Z")
I think the plan is to offer abortions to some and miniature American flags to everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/19 "2009-07-13T17:30:05Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Should a US President really be making this kind of promise to the Pope? Firstly, it has nothing to do with the Pope anyway and secondly it has nothing to do with the Federal government whether a woman chooses to abort or not. Whatever public policy reduces the incidence of **unwanted pregnancies** will reduce the incidence of abortions. The government can legitimately encourage contraception and sex-ed. Abstinence-only education has the same thinking behind it, after all – same in principle, different in methods. ---
**Author:** ![ashman165](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@ashman165](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ashman165)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767/20 "2009-07-13T17:33:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Whatever public policy reduces the incidence of **unwanted pregnancies** will reduce the incidence of abortions. The government can legitimately encourage contraception and sex-ed. Abstinence-only education has the same thinking behind it, after all – same in principle, different in methods. Abstinence only “education” isn’t in the same area of the same principle. One positively encourages the absence of knowledge. The other is actual sex education. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-promises-pope-to-reduce-abortions-in-us/502767.md?page=2)