Everyone here is sharing what they think ought to be. Just like you just did.
I disagree.
Most people are trying to find the best way to deal with what is.
[Analogy: “The wildfire destroyed our house. Now, what will we do ?”]
Your argument is essentially telling women to keep their legs closed.
[Analogy: one spouse telling the other – while their home lay in ashes – “I told you we should never have moved here.”]
Unplanned pregnancies happen. Medically risky (to the mother or the fetus) pregnancies happen. Now the question is the best way to deal with them.
“Keep your legs together” (or words to that effect) is tantamount to ‘pray the gay away.’
I’m telling men and women to not have unprotected sex if they don’t want to risk an unplanned pregnancy.
What a concept.
Okay.
Nobody should feel so unsafe while camping remotely that they should bring a firearm with them.
What a concept.
[/end hijack]
If they use protection, and a pregnancy happens anyway, then what?
That was going to be exactly my question to Bullitt. Even if we declare that there should be no right to abortion in cases of voluntary unprotected PIV sex (a position which I strongly oppose but am willing to temporarily admit for the sake of argument), then what happens if an unwanted pregnancy results from voluntary sex which was not of the unprotected PIV kind?
If responsible people who don’t want to be parents make a good-faith effort to take effective contraceptive precautions during sex but the precautions fail, then is abortion permissible?
(To restate my own actual views, I hold that pregnant people who don’t want to be pregnant are morally entitled to obtain an abortion for whatever reason, irrespective of the circumstances of the conception, up to some arbitrary time limit around the point of fetal viability. The notion that a fertilized egg or early-term fetus is a fully human person with the same right to life as a born human person is a religious belief. I don’t object to anybody holding that belief or leading their own lives in accordance with it, or even trying to persuade others to agree with it, but they have absolutely no right to impose their religious belief on others.)
Though I am in violent agreement with all of this … I’d just like to add:
Seventeen percent of abortion patients in 2014 identified themselves as mainline Protestant, 13% as evangelical Protestant and 24% as Catholic, while 38% reported no religious affiliation and the remaining 8% reported some other affiliation.
I don’t feel too far out on a limb in guessing that many of these ‘religiously affiliated’ people are facially anti-choice.
Which falls under my lifelong heading of “A Republican can be defined as ‘a person to whom it hasn’t happened (to them or to a loved one) yet.’”
[To state the obvious: if they are ‘anti choice’ and stay that way despite their own abortions, then they join an entirely different category (but they’ll never be lonely).]
Also (same source):
In 2014, 51% of abortion patients were using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant, most commonly condoms (24%) or a short-acting hormonal method (13%).
You’ve never heard of rape?
Some more evidence.
An IUD comes out with a pull on a string, way less invasive than a surgical operation. Apples and oranges. They also can be hormonal or nonhormonal [for girls who have not fully matured, I know that the hormone suite contributes to maturation so not interrupting it is important.]
I would wish that they do not have sex until 18 and legal maturity, but humans being horny little devils, that isn’t happening [well, and there are always perverts and rapists that won’t care about being under 18 to take under consideration] and the least we can do is prevent a pregnancy - because the sperm may be coming from a full on adult.
This was my original vote, which I have since stricken as, after (too much) deliberation, I have determined I cannot stand by it. I don’t mean to fight the hypothetical, but unfortunately the wording of the hypothetical fights itself. I neither think that the proposed solution is “a great idea” (because I share the view expressed by other posters that the same right is not at issue when choosing whether to carry a pregnancy to term, versus providing support for a child, and it is disingenuous to try to equate them), nor do I believe “this is the best solution we’re ever going to get.” Because in as much as I believe it would be a superior state of affairs to what we have now, I do not believe it is a solution we ever could get, much ever are going to get.
It’d be one thing if the hypothetical were simply, “Which is better, where we are now, or this proposed alternative?” But it’s not. It’s asking me to either (a) grant that a terrible idea is actually a really great one, (b) grant that an utterly impossible and fanciful but nevertheless superior state of affairs to the present is “the best we’re ever going to get” (thereby implying that it’s a solution we ever could get), or (c) “keep fighting the good fight” which, you know what? I also will not select, because I have no way of knowing how many people selecting that option think “fighting the good fight” means “keep on fighting to erode the foundations of liberty, starting with rights of women to control their own bodies, and then proceeding to roll back LGBTQ rights and a whole host of other rights not contemplated by a bunch of racist old white dues back in the 1700s” and I just cannot get on board with being aligned with anyone like that.
So I retract my vote, and will abstain.
Rape: I’m not outlawing abortion in such cases.
If abortion were outlawed then wouldn’t people learn the proper use of contraceptives? The failure rates would drop dramatically.
IOW many of those people are not being very smart today. Because, my guess, they’re relying on a fall-back plan.
And for a young woman having casual sex with a young man, if she were to rely only on a condom, she’s not being too smart either.
Get smart, people.
And ladies, you’ve always had the power. You just fail to assert it.
Do you feel that the innumerable active and passive safety features on new automobiles are acting as an incentive (or failing to act as a disincentive) for people driving under the influence, or in other ways unsafely ?
If so, would you advocate that we eliminate these safety features, either summarily (all at once) or incrementally ?
I’m not trying to change topics. I’m trying to understand the depth and breath of your concern about, and application of, ‘risk compensation’ policies.
Similarly, do you think we erred as a nation to the degree that we replaced Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” drug policy with harm reduction policies ?
That’s very magnanimous of you. But don’t you think rapists could be made smarter, and to plan more? I mean, after all, if a woman is just relying on a man to use a condom and so should really be using contraceptives herself (otherwise she’s not smart, relying on this supposedly totally foolproof and in expensive and easy-to-obtain-in-every-state-until-just-last-week(not) fall-back that is abortion, right?) shouldn’t you instead make it so that male rapists are incentivized to plan, too? Like, we could make the penalty for rape without a vasectomy more severe than the penalty for rape with a vasectomy? I mean, sure, a vasectomy ain’t exactly contraceptives, but then rape ain’t exactly just having sex, either…
(And in case anyone can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic — Homer Simpson)
My idea is to herd all the pro-life folks together. When a woman seeks an abortion, she will be matched up with a pro-lifer, and her embryo will be implanted inside the pro-lifer.
Men and women will be recipients.
The now-pregnant parents will be on strict bed rest and receive hormones to ensure the successful implantation. The responsibility of the child will rest upon the new parent.
This program will enable the pro-life community to walk the walk. They can meditate on the sanctity of life through all the aches and pains of pregnancy. And they will also be able to walk the walk by raising yet another child, being responsible for food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education. Orthodontia is an added blessing.
~VOW
Who made you (or anybody) the arbiter of sex?
As an aside, I’m not eager to live in a society filled with sexually frustrated young men who are being shut out of sex by “smart” ladies who are simply too scared to have sex with the men they like.
This exact scenario (but only to pro-life men) happens in a sci-fi novel:
Sheri Tepper’s The Fresco.
No, they would learn exactly as much as they learn today. And the failure rate would likely be about the same, too.
Why on earth do you think outlawing abortion would be contraception more reliable? Do you think anyone wants to have an abortion? What an incredibly bizarre perspective.
(Air bags don’t increase auto accidents, either.)
If only we could do that!
Let’s flip a coin for each pregnancy and if it’s tails we transfer the fertilized ovum into the male’s abdominal cavity. The little blastocyte critters aren’t picky — they’ll attach anywhere there’s a blood supply. A caesarian would be necessary farther on down the line but other than that, oughta work just fine.
Of course the problem is, we don’t have a magic way to know which male is associated with a given pregnancy.
It’s always the female people who pay this particular piper, so your attitudes on reproductive responsibility, while superficially aimed towards everyone, are in practice only affecting women.
Which is why they are often inclined to say that only people with the capacity to become pregnant ought to weigh in on this issue.