NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2008
The Complex Face Of Abortion
Race, Economics Compose Largest Factors In U.S. Abortion Rates
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Though about 13 percent of American women are black, new federal figures show they account for 35 percent of the abortions. (AP)
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Abortion Debate
It's one of the most hotly debated political and social issues in America. Review a history of that debate since the historic Roe v. Wade decision.
Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. Sixty percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion.
A disproportionately high number are black or Hispanic. And regardless of race, high abortion rates are linked to hard times.
"It doesn't just happen to young people, it doesn't necessarily have to do with irresponsibility," said Miriam Inocencio, president of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island. "Women face years and years of reproductive life after they've completed their families, and they're at risk of an unintended pregnancy that can create an economic strain."
Activists on both sides of the abortion debate will soon be marking the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which established a nationwide right to abortion. Since Jan. 22, 1973, there have been roughly 50 million abortions in the United States, and more than one-third of adult women are estimated to have had at least one.
Who are these women?
They come from virtually every demographic sector. But year after year the statistics reveal that black women and economically struggling women - who have above-average rates of unintended pregnancies - are far more likely than others to have abortions.
Though about 13 percent of American women are black, new federal figures show they account for 35 percent of the abortions.
Black anti-abortion activists depict this phenomenon in dire terms - "genocide" and "holocaust," for example. But often the women getting the abortions say they act in the interests of children they already have.
"It wasn't a hard decision for me to make, because I knew where I wanted to go in my life - I've never regretted it," said Kimberly Mathias, 28, an African-American single mother from Missouri.
She had an abortion at 19, when she already raising a 2-year-old son.
"It wasn't hard to realize I didn't want another child at that time," Mathias said. "I was trying to take care of the one I had, and going to college and working at the same time."
She was able to graduate, now has an insurance job, and - still a single mother - has a 3-year-old son as well as her first-born, now 11.
By contrast, Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., calls herself a "reformed murderer" for undergoing two abortions when she was young.
Now an outspoken anti-abortion campaigner, King says the best way to reduce abortions among black women is to dissuade more of them from premarital sex.
"We give free sex education, free condoms, free birth control," she complained. "That's almost like permission to have free sex, and the higher the rate of sexual activity, the higher the rate of unintended pregnancy."
Anti-abortion activist Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union says many blacks are unaware of their community's high abortion rate.
"We don't talk about it," Gardner said. "It's a silent killer among us."
She contends that abortion-rights supporters tempt black women into abortion by suggesting they can't afford to raise the child. But Gardner also acknowledges that some black women make this argument on their own.
"We had the whole civil rights movement - now we're in a place where we're moving further toward equality," Gardner said. "So women think, 'For once, I can see the American dream. I can have the house and the job, but it would postpone it to have another child. I can't afford to take time off."'
Dr. Vanessa Cullins, a black physician who is Planned Parenthood's national vice president for medical affairs, said the allegations of "black genocide" do not help women meet day-to-day challenges.
"These actions take attention away from medically proven ways to reduce unintended pregnancy - comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, and open and honest conversations about relationships," she said
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president, NARAL Pro-Choice America
Looking beyond racial dividing lines, Cullins views the right to abortion as an important component in the ability of all American women to determine the right size of their family.The stereotype is that the decision is made lightly. It is not.
Nancy Keenanpresident, NARAL Pro-Choice America
"Groups that become assimilated in U.S. culture and experience economic opportunities naturally decide to limit family size, because they want to take part in the American dream," she said. "Nowadays, that usually requires two people bringing in the income. If you're a single mother, achieving the dream is all the harder, so it makes sense to limit family size so you can shower as much support as you can on the children you have."
Georgette Forney, who had an abortion when she was 16 and is now an anti-abortion campaigner who heads Anglicans for Life, says she often sees economic pressures triggering abortions, even in middle-class families.
"In one situation, the husband was adamant that they were on track to pay for their two sons' college education, and a third child would throw off his whole calculation," Forney recounted. "So that baby was aborted and that woman was devastated. It was a five-year process to recover."
Forney said she also encountered a single mother who was worried she might lose custody of her daughter in light of a suit by the biological father. The woman then became pregnant, Forney said, and had an abortion in violation of her own beliefs because she feared having a second child would jeopardize prospects for keeping her daughter.
"We've begun to depend on abortions," Forney said. "We feel we have to choose between our unborn child and our born children. We shouldn't have to choose."
Martha Girard, on the other hand, says she's appalled by the notion that women should lose the right to choose.
A hospital ultrasound technician from Pleasant Prairie, Wis., and a mother of three, Girard had an abortion two years ago, at the age of 44, when she mistakenly thought she was too old to get pregnant.
Having been through three difficult pregnancies previously, and coping with a mentally disabled eldest son, she felt abortion was the prudent choice.
"I knew that this pregnancy would end up badly - I could feel it - and we've already got enough problems with the mentally ill son," Girard said.
"I was very sad and depressed the first week," she added. "But because it's hard on you emotionally and some women regret it, that doesn't mean it's wrong, that you shouldn't have done it, that someone else should decide for you."
The Journal of Family Issues published a report earlier this month asserting that women often choose abortion because of their wish to be good parents.
That means women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do, and women who already are mothers want to care responsibly for their existing children, said the lead author, Rachel Jones, a researcher with the Guttmacher Institute.
"These women believed that it was more responsible to terminate a pregnancy than to have a child whose health and welfare could be in question," Jones said.
Even among many abortion opponents, the Guttmacher Institute - which supports abortion rights -is considered the nation's best source of abortion statistics.
Federal statistics do not include California, the most populous state, because its government does not provide data. But Guttmacher researchers surveyed abortion providers there as well as in other states to produce the latest national estimate of 1.2 million abortions in 2005, down from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990 but still representing more than 20 percent of all pregnancies.
One of the Guttmacher's top researchers, Stanley Henshaw, said the recent drop may disguise the fact abortion rates remain relatively high for black and Hispanic women. He believes the most effective countermeasure would be wider availability of contraceptives such as intrauterine device, or IUDs, that don't require attention as frequently as condoms or birth-control pills.
But Henshaw noted that even women who are sterilized sometimes get pregnant and have abortions.
"Every method fails sometimes," he said. "There's always going to be a need for abortions."
Though abortion is commonplace across the country, urban areas have far higher rates than rural areas where access to abortion providers can be difficult.
New York, New Jersey, California, Delaware, Nevada, Maryland and Florida had the highest abortion rates in 2005, according to the new Guttmacher report released this week. Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota and Mississippi had the lowest rates - the latter two states have just a single abortion clinic in operation.
Susan Hill, founder of the National Women's Health Organization that runs the remaining Mississippi clinic, says the statistics may not fully reflect a subgroup of relatively affluent women who obtain unreported abortions through their private doctors.
"In Mississippi, it's the poor women who don't have access to that who have to run through the maze of protesters screaming and yelling abuse," Hill said. "Wealthier women can be more creative about their alternatives."
According to Guttmacher data, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times higher than that among women from middle-income and affluent households.
An increasing number of women avoid surgery by using the RU-486 abortion pill or other early medication - these now account for about 13 percent of all abortions.
Of all U.S. women getting abortions, about 54 percent are doing so for the first time, while one-fifth have had at least two previous abortions. Of those over 20, 57 percent have attended college. About 60 percent have at least one child, while one-third have two or more.
"I don't think most people understand that these are women who have families, who are making a very serious decision about their reproductive health," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "The stereotype is that the decision is made lightly. It is not."
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See all 187 CommentsAbsolutely! The idea being spread by the self-proclaimed "pro-life" types that this is something casually done is rediculuse! What we need is free birth control for all to stem the tide of unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence only is a joke and doesn''t work.
How about birth control ?
Birth Control is not 100% effective. Nothing but abstinence is. A lot of teenagers are told it is and they end up pregnant and lost... That is why people have a problem with planned parenthood.
Personally I don''t have a problem with it. I like the idea of it.
One: How SAD that such a sterile term as "terminate" a pregnancy is used to either rip apart (or poison with saline solution) a human baby while in its mother''s womb! This should be the SAFEST place on Earth! (Sounds a little like "ethnic cleansing" for the atrocities committed against another race.)
TWO: How SAD that to have "equality" now means women should have the "CHOICE" to have their babies destroyed.
God must be SORELY WEEPING over his fallen creation!!
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Posted by hodgepodge21 at 07:25 PM : Jan 20, 2008
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No forcing scared and desperate women into back ally''s... that''s Murder Sparky. You freaky fascist think you are going to stop abortion?? ROFLMAO Not even the Gestapo can give you that. All you will do is drive it underground... but then of course that doesn''t bother you freaks now does it? Sieg Heil and Amen!!
TWO: How SAD that to have "equality" now means women should have the "CHOICE" to have their babies destroyed.
God must be SORELY WEEPING over his fallen creation!!
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Posted by feddupp at 06:53 PM : Jan 20, 2008
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So what do you Fascist propose? Are we going to have the Gestapo and SS watching all women? Abortion has been around a lot longer than what we have today. You are NOT going to stop Abortion and that''s just a fact... drive it underground, yes. Force Women into back Ally''s to be treated by quacks, yes. But you are NOT going to stop Abortion. In fact passing a law forbidding it will result in the EXACT same thing as happened when the Religious Nazi''s tried to outlaw Alcohol. Talk to people and work with people to find a way to prevent the majority of Abortions... make the morning after pill more widely available. Outlaw the abuse of Women''s right to Birth Control based on Religious Bigotry... all of this will make abortion less likely. Sieg Heil and Amen.
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Posted by hodgepodge21 at 07:35 PM : Jan 20, 2008
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I don''t think anyone cares what you nazi''s do at all... what bothers people is your constant desire to FORCE the people of this nation to live by YOUR religion. Not much difference between you folks and the taliban as far as I can see. Sieg Heil and Amen
If anyone ever doubts life begins at conception, when the "Bodies" exhibit that is currently at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh comes to a city near you, go and examine the children from beginning.
http://www.carnegiesciencecenter.org/default.aspx?pageId=307
Posted by feddupp at 06:53 PM : Jan 20, 2008
Ain''t no god. Never was and never will be. I''m not bound to obey what you think is right because of something your phony god says. This is an issue of law, not an issue of what a 2000 year old book of fairy tales says is right or wrong.
Posted by harp1963 at 08:24 PM : Jan 20, 2008
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Well just imagine how "uncomfortable" the rape/incest victim feels...
...if you can.
That''s why abortion should NEVER be made illegal.
Posted by USAyesterday at 08:53 PM : Jan 20, 2008
RAmen!
Posted by USAyesterday at 08:53 PM : Jan 20, 2008
RAmen!
Posted by crzmeat at 08:49 PM : Jan 20, 2008
Why don''t we stay out of a murderer''s life and let him keep murdering people? Though many may think that murdering is immoral, some may not, so why should we force our beliefs on them?
We "force our beliefs on everyone" to protect what we believe to be moral principles. You saying that we should just let you kill the unborn baby is like me just saying that you should just stand aside while I murder my child.
My point is, from a pro-abortion person''s perspective, abortion isn''t murder. But from a pro-life person''s perspective, it is MURDER, so don''t ask us to sit aside and be okay with liberals killing unborn children. Otherwise, stand aside and don''t force your morals on a serial killer are pedophile who, may not share your beliefs and want you to "force your beliefs on them".
So seriously liberals, stop with the "quit forcing religious beliefs" cr@p on people who believe that what you are doing is murder, because hey, you would stop a guy from raping and killing a little child right? I certainly hope so. Well, pro-lifers are doing their part to stop what in their minds is murder.
Posted by indivthinker at 09:37 PM : Jan 20, 2008
Because we don''t believe that abortion is murder.
And don''t start with this topic because no matter what you do to convince yourself, I don''t believe nor trust your rational. Keep your morals to yourself or I will apply mine and smite your sinful self with a sword tempered with your God''s blessings.
Hmm, sounds like a Islamic extremist, doesn''t it?
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Posted by cdmertz at 10:02 PM : Jan 20, 2008
geez, looking at cdmertz''s comments, "it really hard not to!!"
Beloved home and country, %u2018tis of thee I freely sing
And to those whose ears shall never hear the bells of freedom ring
Countless future citizens before their ships arrive
Tossed overboard like Boston tea, not one left to survive
Tender lives once nestled in the warm folds of the womb
Their bodies rest in pieces in a sterile plastic tomb
Pursuit of happiness is overshadowed by the claim
That life is not a human right, a torch without a flame
The nation is divided far above the waves of grain
While half a generation lies beneath the fruited plain
Barren women pray for what some women choose to lose
As they pull the plug on life-support and snuff the lighted fuse
Innocent creations now can join the angels%u2019 song
Some choices that we make in life are definitely wrong
Free to speak your mind within the land of pilgrims%u2019 pride
Free to desecrate the land in which our children died
Exercise your right to vote and practice liberty
Hear the silent echoed screams of %u201CPlease don%u2019t tread on me!%u201D
America! America! God shed disgrace on thee!
And fight we should for humanhood from seed to shining seed
RAmen.
Posted by SgtRDS
I see you post statements like this fairly often and I usually ignore them. Did you ever dare God to prove whether He exists or not? Have you ever tried to honestly prove the Bible is false? If you haven''t you should try it. If God does not exist, you will have honestly tried and can say so. If He does exist it is His responsibility to respond. Either way you win.
Posted by oldpilot954 at 01:05 AM : Jan 21, 2008
.............
SgtRDS and I separate on the belief of God, but my faith in God does not give me the power, NOR YOU, to dictate to any other human being how to conduct their lives that affects ONLY their own bodies. Abortion availability is for the health of the woman carrying the fetus, not just for birth control.
But lets take something into a bigger picture here, and that is the world''s population, specifically ours in the U.S. If no woman ever had an abortion again, those "pro-lifers" got to ask themselves one big philosophical question...
...how are those children going to be cared for? One would have to be a complete moron to believe that everyone who has the ability to procreate has the ability to be a competent and able parent. Clearly that is not the case.
Remember SCHIP? The program that attempted to be expanded to accommodate the millions more children who do not have health care?
How many "pro-lifers" are against SCHIP because it was funded partially with their tax dollars (boo hoo hoo)?
For those who call it murder, what about the other millions of spermata that don''t make it to the egg? Obviously alive, they will soon be dead also.
You absolutely have no right to impose your religious beliefs on anyone else.
For those who advocate suppressing one of the most compelling instincts of all living things in order to achieve birth control, only fools try to deny nature, the misogynists, rapists, molesters, and most other perverts in our society result from such foolishness.
For those who are not religious and advocate the right to abortion, debunking the beliefs of the religionists, even if they are wrong, is not a valid tactic, people will believe what they wish, even if their belief contradicts fact. Stick to the fact that religion should not and must not be legislated, that is your strongest base.
Regardless, I do regard Roe v Wade as a poor ruling mainly because it takes the decision out of the hands of the individual states. I don''t like the government telling me and my state what to do any more than the pro-choice people like me telling them what to do. I guess it just comes from my redneck roots:)
Posted by brianbwb
I would suggest that if you observe human nature for a while that you will discover that those "perverts" are expressing their nature without the restraint of society and its laws. Where do you get the definition of a pervert? In our society we consider a 30 year-old man getting a 14 year old pregnant a molester but in other cultures (right or wrong) they would call it a marriage. All laws concerning procreative relationships are restraints placed on society by someone who is forcing their views on someone else for the common good of the society. What makes it seem restrictive is whether it suggests that what you and I want to do is wrong.
Grow up and be accountable for your own actions. You have already made the choice of what to do with your body, and now you can''t choose what to do with the body of your unborn child.....it''s not your choice anymore and not your right to take his life.
This is not really that complicated. It only becomes complicated when we humans want to justify our wrong choices.......we are trying to escape the right and wrong factor....sorry.....you can''t! You are accountable whether you like it or not.
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Ok, if the decision is not made lightly....why not? One reason.....it is a life and death decision, not of the mother, but the baby.
We have the technology to do corrective surgeries on fetus'' in the womb.......if that is not a human being, why do that? Because we want the choice to be ours.....life or death......if it is death, we want no penalty. If it is life, we want the freedom to have it the way we want it. We are playing god, and we are suffering for it.
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Terminate the child! It may be in bad health.
Terminate the child! It''s welfare we cannot be sure.
Terminate the child! We have lost the understanding of the sanctity of life and we are paying for it now!
In a legal sense.
Personally, I feel that abortion is vile disgusting practice that allows many a irresponsible person the opportunity to bail out of another bad situation. That''s me and my opinion, though.
I have my opimion and evry right to express it and live my life in this manner. I do NOT have the right however to force my opinion or belief on another person. They have just as much of a right to express their opinions and beliefs...and to live their lives as they see fit, just the rest of us do. This is a concept known as "freedom".
There is no legal question. If we disagree, then we disagree.
Posted by oldpilot954 at 01:05 AM : Jan 21, 2008
How can I dare a myth to prove it exists? that makes no sense. I used to be a born again Christian. I have read the bible several times and at one point in my life witnessed on street corners even more enthusiastic then most. I was something of a preacher and quite probably would have been successful with my own ministry or tele-church. However I couldn''t bring myself to do it. It''s a scam. It''s bogus. It doesn''t stand up to real world tests or even the most basic logic. The bible is false and has so many contradictions and errors as to be a joke. The more I tried, the more I investigated, the more obvious it became that it''s just not real. There really is no god.
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The tender conscience swells with grief and guilt because at the hands of the distraught mother, her child is dead.
But the abortionist tries to calm her and tell her, "It''s ok.....it''s not really a child." But inside she knows.....it was her baby, alive and moving in her womb....with a heart beat. It was her choice.....her decision to kill ........and now her conscience will not rest.
Posted by SgtRDS at 02:41 AM : Jan 21, 2008
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There is no one more bitter than a backslidden Christian. If you have read the bible several times and used to preach, then you are aware there is an adversary. That adversary has succeeded in robbing you of your faith by simply convincing you of a LIE.
There is no legal question. If we disagree, then we disagree.
Posted by moonshadow22 at 02:39 AM : Jan 21, 2008
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Sure, you''re free to live your life as you see fit, as long as "how you see fit" does not violate another''s right to live their life. We all live by laws. If I think that living my life the way I see fit means driving your car when I want.......you are probably going to call the cops. Freedom without law is anarchy.
Posted by SgtRDS at 02:41 AM : Jan 21, 2008
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Investigated what? Ah, so you began to analyze and rely on your own understanding to comprehend the spiritual things with the carnal (natural) mind. You moved right over into the enemy''s territory....the natural mind. Remember Jesus said to Satan, "You are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men." Satan thinks like the natural mind....the way men think....and why not, he is the father of the natural man. You bought it....hook, line and sinker. God''s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways not our ways.....His thoughts and ways are much higher than man''s.
Don''t stay there man.
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This report only proves how hardened and blind people have become. So, human beings are no different than the dogs or cats that eat their young because of a food or territory shortage. This is what a godless society becomes.
Yea, you''re a better parent because you kill your kid instead of taking responsibility for it and feeding it, clothing it, sending it to school etc. It''s a whole lot easier, I gotta admit.
I would define a pervert whose actions against other people go beyond the pale of any civilization. Jeffrey Dahmer was a pervert, Chikatilo was a pervert. John Wayne Gacy was a pervert. Bush is a pervert.
There are differences and sociological thresholds on what is considered pedophilia, and what is not, so the 14 year old analogy is subject to cultural interpretation, but the examples I cited above are not.
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Posted by leona2211 at 06:57 AM : Jan 21, 2008
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Oh PLEASE!! You freaks aren''t going to stop Abortions and the intelligent one''s know it. All you freaks will do is drive desperate women into back ally''s to face coat hangers... why? So you can feel all warm and fuzzy. I haven''t see one of the fundies out there come up with any solution to the problem.. they are what they have always been, fakes and frauds. We should make the Morning After pill as available as possible and give every girl in High School and before knowledge on how to prevent an Unwanted Child. This "Don''t do it until your old" garbage didn''t work in my day and it does NOT work today. Sieg Heil And Amen.
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Posted by GeoLee1 at 03:20 AM : Jan 21, 2008
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Thank you!!
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 06:25 AM : Jan 21, 2008
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Actually Nancy naive to the hilt.....the opposite is the real truth.....God wants us, as in the garden, to depend totally and find our complete satisfaction in Him alone. But no, they were tempted, as you are, to take control of their own lives and become independent of God.
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