Have you looked at any other features of law in the Netherlands besides abortion restrictions? They do a much better job than the U.S. at providing access to health care and social services of the kind proven to reduce abortions.

And welfare does work for most of the people who need it. Your average welfare recipient is white, is on welfare for less than 2 years, and never returns to the welfare rolls, though you almost never hear any of this mentioned. If we really want to reduce abortions in this country, the best place to start is with a universal single payer health care plan. National health care and effective sex education are the primary reasons European countries, including the Netherlands, have much lower rates of abortion, unintended pregnancy and teen pregnancy than the U.S. As long as we keep health care a priviledge and rely on abstinence only models of sex “education,” we are going to continue to experience much higher rates in these categories than Europe, whether we further restrict abortion or not.

I looked at the National Right to Life link. They list the 23% category as “feels” unable to afford a baby. Pro-life clinics usually are able to show or find or produce the essentials to afford a baby. CareNet is one group I am familiar with. Charities are often helpful as well as WIC. Adoption is another method to address concerns of affordability. Since the mother considering abortion does not want the child anyway, perhaps adoption will not be difficult. When the baby is handed over, affordability as an issue goes away.

The Catholics in Alliance study has questionable conclusions from their data. One critical response can be found by Michael New PhD at http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.30_New_Michael%20J._Does%20Increased%20Welfare%20Spending%20or%20Pro-Life%20Legislation%20Reduce%20Abortion%253F_.xml

According the the Guttmacher Institute, the Netherlands has the lowest abortion rate in Europe, yet it’s legal restrictions might not be attractive to the writers of this blog. I would welcome the restrictions the Netherlands has in our own country. See a wiki entry on Netherlands abortion laws. Regarding improved social services in our own country, we tried that for 40 years, it was called welfare. Ironically, it was Bill Clinton who eliminated welfare as we knew it in the 90’s yet still claims abortion rates fell under his administration. They fell under Bush’s as well. So bringing back welfare as we knew it then might not be the answer to the problems.

God is good
jpu

In the meantime, we still feel that babies in the utero should have the same human rights the out of womb babies have and their mothers, which is why, there is little satisfaction on our side until those babies have those rights.

Thanks for detailing all tis Jill, and I too am incredibly glad to see some of the (actual) pro-life people seeing the light.

And I’ll try to comment more often to help swing the human being to troll ratio back in your favor :)

I think this article and Rosa’s leadership point to an opportunity to work with strange bed-fellows to get some things accomplished. We should take it.

I am sick and tired of the anti-choice lobby insisting that pro-choicers must “compromise” and work towards our alleged common goals. WE are the ones who support comprehensive sex-ed, readily available birth control, structural support for mothers, more accessible pre-natal and maternal healthcare, etc. etc. NONE of this country’s “pro-life” groups do. But like Joan admitted, “pro-lifers” don’t actually give a shit about people’s lives.

So I have a question for Joan. Supposing you, Joan, are HIV positive, have 6 children (none of whom are in school…maybe some are sick, and certainly all are undernourished andhungry), are HIV positive, lived in a mud cave (you can hardly call those houses), your ‘husband’ has three other ‘wives’, and beats you every other night before essentially raping you (but you can’t complain because according to the law in your country, husbands own their wives so it isn’t rape), and you are now pregnant. Just think about what that would be like, and what that life is like for millions of women around the world. Wouldn’t YOU want an abortion??? And while we are at it…let’s just say for arguments sake, that the fetus did get a choice. What do you think it would say???? (I can just hear it now telling me that it can’t wait to be born into that life full of promise and opportunity – I hope that you are detecting my sarcasm).

Personally (as in ME), I don’t believe in abortion…but I ABHOR people who think that THEY have the right to tell ME what to do with my body. And telling women who had no control over their circumstances that an abortion is wrong. Who do they think they are??? Why aren’t you speaking out against all the other things that really ARE wrong?