• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

What is the most realistic/pragmatic way to significantly decrease abortion rates?

year2late

IIJAFM
DP Veteran
Joined
May 12, 2013
Messages
24,761
Reaction score
22,295
Gender
Female
Political Leaning
Progressive
Making abortion illegal.

Telling people that abortion is morally wrong.

Demanding that people abstain unless they are willing to accept the consequences of becoming pregnant.

Picketing Abortion Clinics

Improving physical and financial access tp high quality long term birth control.

Turning an unwanted pregnancy to a wanted one with assurances of job/medical/housing security.



I will be curious as to why you believe your choice is the most realistic and pragmatic.
 
Making abortion illegal.

Telling people that abortion is morally wrong.

Demanding that people abstain unless they are willing to accept the consequences of becoming pregnant.

Picketing Abortion Clinics

Improving physical and financial access tp high quality long term birth control.

Turning an unwanted pregnancy to a wanted one with assurances of job/medical/housing security.



I will be curious as to why you believe your choice is the most realistic and pragmatic.
History. Abortion has been steadily on the decline since 1980 or so. Being legal is working.

Although I will say that those last two are still worthy goals, and can be accomplished without needed to make abortion illegal. Picketing remains protected under 1st amendment.
Sent from my Z982 using Tapatalk
 
History. Abortion has been steadily on the decline since 1980 or so. Being legal is working.

Although I will say that those last two are still worthy goals, and can be accomplished without needed to make abortion illegal. Picketing remains protected under 1st amendment.
Sent from my Z982 using Tapatalk

Most women who choose abortion are not in a stable in a perceived stable enough postion to care for a child (or another child) let alone a stable enough position to be pregnant.

If contraception was more reliable, it would help for a core reason that group of women chose abortion - unwanted pregnancy. It is sad that the most reliable form of contraception cost twice as much as an early abortion. Too rich for medicaid, too poor for insurance or self pay.

On the flipside, if a woman felt as if she would have stable employment, healthcare, childcare and be housing secure...it would go a long way to make her maintain the pregnancy.

But pragmatically, I think through community and government resources it is possible to get many more women on long term forms if they desire. I think that would help the most.
 
What is the most realistic/pragmatic way to significantly decrease abortion rates?
There is none. It would require the moral rehabilitation of America. We'd have to turn back the clock to a pre-Sixties moral climate. To the Forties probably. Narcissism would have to be rooted out. Stupidity rolled back. None of this is going to happen.

The genie is out of the bottle.
 
Last edited:
better sex education, more access to affordable contraception, and policies around making the economy better for lower and working class families.
 
What is the most realistic/pragmatic way to significantly decrease abortion rates?
Making abortion illegal.

Telling people that abortion is morally wrong.

Demanding that people abstain unless they are willing to accept the consequences of becoming pregnant.

Picketing Abortion Clinics

Improving physical and financial access tp high quality long term birth control.

Turning an unwanted pregnancy to a wanted one with assurances of job/medical/housing security.

...
Bromides for the moral decay of a culture.
 
Most women who choose abortion are not in a stable in a perceived stable enough postion to care for a child (or another child) let alone a stable enough position to be pregnant.

If contraception was more reliable, it would help for a core reason that group of women chose abortion - unwanted pregnancy. It is sad that the most reliable form of contraception cost twice as much as an early abortion. Too rich for medicaid, too poor for insurance or self pay.

On the flipside, if a woman felt as if she would have stable employment, healthcare, childcare and be housing secure...it would go a long way to make her maintain the pregnancy.

But pragmatically, I think through community and government resources it is possible to get many more women on long term forms if they desire. I think that would help the most.
I did note that all that was a worthy goals towards the effort of reducing abortion. You just took what he said and expanded it greatly on that particular point.

Sent from my Z982 using Tapatalk
 
There is none. It would require the moral rehabilitation of America. We'd have to turn back the clock to a pre-Sixties moral climate. To the Forties probably. Narcissism would have to be rooted out. Stupidity rolled back. None of this is going to happen.

The genie is out of the bottle.
We already rolled the stupidity back. That's why abortion has been on a steady decline for the past few decades.

Sent from my Z982 using Tapatalk
 
Making abortion illegal.

Telling people that abortion is morally wrong.

Demanding that people abstain unless they are willing to accept the consequences of becoming pregnant.

Picketing Abortion Clinics

Improving physical and financial access tp high quality long term birth control.

Turning an unwanted pregnancy to a wanted one with assurances of job/medical/housing security.



I will be curious as to why you believe your choice is the most realistic and pragmatic.
Education, education, education, affordable contraception, affordable healthcare before, during and after pregnancies for mother and child, good education and economic opportunities for children.
 
Making abortion illegal.

Telling people that abortion is morally wrong.

Demanding that people abstain unless they are willing to accept the consequences of becoming pregnant.

Picketing Abortion Clinics

Improving physical and financial access tp high quality long term birth control.

Turning an unwanted pregnancy to a wanted one with assurances of job/medical/housing security.



I will be curious as to why you believe your choice is the most realistic and pragmatic.

Education and birth control -> exactly what the moralizers don't want.
 
There is none. It would require the moral rehabilitation of America. We'd have to turn back the clock to a pre-Sixties moral climate. To the Forties probably. Narcissism would have to be rooted out. Stupidity rolled back. None of this is going to happen.

The genie is out of the bottle.

You aren't really concerned about abortion, per se. This is about what you see as the immorality of others. Your real enemies are women's lib and contraception like the pill. That's your genie.

There was plenty of sex in the 1940's, but it wasn't as out in the open.
 
Education, education, education, affordable contraception, affordable healthcare before, during and after pregnancies for mother and child, good education and economic opportunities for children.

Long term contraception has been the most helpful so far, but for the folks that are too rich for Medicaid and too poor for insurance or self pay...it is too pricey. And frankly those that are too rich for Medicaid and too poor for insurance are probably the most likely to consider abortion.
 
Another vote for more sex education at younger ages. If a girl is physically capable of getting pregnant, or a boy is physically capable of getting a girl pregnant, then they are old enough to know exactly how sex works. There is still a puritan streak in American culture that seeks to keep children "innocent" for as long as possible. Deliberately destroying this "innocence" earlier than we are currently comfortable with and keeping age-appropriate sex education front and center as a part of every grade level throughout their entire education would reduce the number of abortions and lead to emotionally healthier, more mature and sexually responsible young people.
 
You aren't really concerned about abortion, per se. This is about what you see as the immorality of others. Your real enemies are women's lib and contraception like the pill. That's your genie.

There was plenty of sex in the 1940's, but it wasn't as out in the open.

I read that back at the turn of the 1900s, the government confiscated a book that Margret Sanger wrote about sex because it was considered indecent. When WWI rolled around and the government was processing civilians into the military, they were astounded to learn how many of them had venereal disease. They decided that to combat this situation, they would issue the impounded books to the troops.

The argument that we are a moral cesspool is as old a civilization.
 
Education and birth control -> exactly what the moralizers don't want.

Well they can either stick to their guns and finger wag at the sinners or they can work pragmatically to really decrease the abortion rates. My guess is the ego stroking finger wagging will be the choice of many if not most. Ego stroking finger wagging gives them warm fuzzies, but does little to reduce the abortion rates.
 
Countries with the most restrictive abortion laws also have the highest rates of abortion, the study by the Guttmacher Institute found. Easier access to birth control drives down abortion rates, the report also finds.

NBC News
 
There is none. It would require the moral rehabilitation of America. We'd have to turn back the clock to a pre-Sixties moral climate. To the Forties probably. Narcissism would have to be rooted out. Stupidity rolled back. None of this is going to happen.

The genie is out of the bottle.

That's kind of cool. Fingering wagging is fun, and it looks like the fun will never end.
 
Well they can either stick to their guns and finger wag at the sinners or they can work pragmatically to really decrease the abortion rates. My guess is the ego stroking finger wagging will be the choice of many if not most. Ego stroking finger wagging gives them warm fuzzies, but does little to reduce the abortion rates.

I came to the conclusion some time ago that sex and women not being in the kitchen and barefoot are the things that really bother them. The thing that got the religious right on the anti-abortion bus was the ERA, not Roe. Abortion gives them a better appeal to emotion to work with.
 
You aren't really concerned about abortion, per se. This is about what you see as the immorality of others. Your real enemies are women's lib and contraception like the pill. That's your genie.

There was plenty of sex in the 1940's, but it wasn't as out in the open.
I'm talking about the morality of abortion. You're talking about something else.
 
I'm talking about the morality of abortion. You're talking about something else.

What you're talking about isn't necessarily what your actual concern is.
 

Maybe it's down this road:
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church is opposed to artificial contraception and all sexual acts outside of the context of marital intercourse.[3] This belief dates back to the first centuries of Christianity.[4][5] Such acts are considered intrinsically disordered because of the belief that all licit sexual acts must be both unitive (express love), and procreative (open to procreation). The only form of birth control permitted is abstinence. Modern scientific methods of "periodic abstinence" such as natural family planning (NFP) were counted as a form of abstinence by Pope Paul VI in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae.[6] The following is the condemnation of contraception:

Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.

Religion and birth control - Wikipedia

It's not just abortion that's immoral/sinful.
 
Back
Top Bottom