# Opposing abortion does not, necessarily, require support for babies or mothers after birth

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposing-abortion-does-not-necessarily-require-support-for-babies-or-mothers-after-birth/834602>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 27, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposing-abortion-does-not-necessarily-require-support-for-babies-or-mothers-after-birth/834602 "2019-05-27T18:05:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 10

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**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposing-abortion-does-not-necessarily-require-support-for-babies-or-mothers-after-birth/834602/181 "2019-06-08T00:33:06Z")

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> [@CelticKnot](#):
>
> I’m saying that there would be fewer unplanned pregnancies if there is no easy way out of one.

This has never been true in all of human history.

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**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposing-abortion-does-not-necessarily-require-support-for-babies-or-mothers-after-birth/834602/182 "2019-06-08T14:47:58Z")

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> [@CelticKnot](#):
>
> There’s a weird worldview that believes human behavior won’t change despite change of circumstances. People behave differently when they know they have there are possible unpleasant consequences for certain behaviors or situations. Before 1973, there weren’t millions of illegitimate children born every year, and there weren’t millions of back-alley abortions. Fewer people chose to indulge in behavior that produced unwanted pregnancies, and if a child was conceived, some people got married and some gave the child up for adoption.

There’s a weird worldview that believes making abortions illegal means that there won’t be any abortions, and that making sex risky means that people will just stop having sex.

> **[Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue?](https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2003/03/lessons-roe-will-past-be-prologue)**
>
> With an administration deeply opposed to abortion, a Congress poised to pass legislation aimed at weakening the principles underlying Roe v. Wade and a Supreme Court whose composition is considered likely to change in the near future, it is...

> [@](#):
>
> In the 1960s, researchers from Princeton University estimated that almost one in three Americans (32%) who wanted no more children were likely to have at least one unintended pregnancy before the end of their childbearing years; more than six in 10 Americans (62%) wanting children at some point in the future were likely to have experienced at least one unintended pregnancy.  
> [. . .]  
> Women with financial means had some, albeit very limited, recourse to a legal abortion  
> [. . .]  
> Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. One analysis, extrapolating from data from North Carolina, concluded that an estimated 829,000 illegal or self-induced abortions occurred in 1967.
> 
> One stark indication of the prevalence of illegal abortion was the death toll.

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**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opposing-abortion-does-not-necessarily-require-support-for-babies-or-mothers-after-birth/834602/183 "2019-06-08T15:15:33Z")

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> [@CelticKnot](#):
>
> A nurse refusing to participate in an unnecessary abortion isn’t preventing someone from having one. The hospital can accommodate employees’ beliefs and have another nurse work. But that’s not good enough for many. Better to destroy a nurse’s career than let her/him practice her/his religion.

The nurse is destroying her own career by refusing to do her job.

Will any excuse do, in your eyes, or does the nurse have to be appeasing specific imaginary beings? What if a nurse refuses to assist in abortions because it may anger Santa Claus or Tolkien’s elves?

> [@](#):
>
> The same mindset that treats a human life as disposable would believe they can force another person to provide a service unwillingly.

It’s not, but even if it were, that shouldn’t bother you; you’re totally cool with forcing women to do things unwillingly. Having a child springs to mind.

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