I mentioned that over the past several months I've become more pro-life and more pro-woman. But I was still a bit wary, because I had a sneaking suspicion that this line of reasoning was leading me to reject abortion in absolutely all cases, even for the exceptions that everybody always allows: in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is at risk. Um, that gets a little uncomfortable, you know? Despite my unease, it seems to be the logical and even necessary conclusion that I keep drawing.
But I'm still too chicken to go into it on here. So instead, I thought I'd just discuss the frequency of these exceptions (with the help of a couple Feminists For Life posters). When you hear about them over and over, you start to think they must be really common. But in actuality, they compose only 7% of all abortions.
According to Planned Parenthood's own statistics, only 1% of all pregnancies ending in abortion are a result of rape. Less than half a percent are a result of incest. (1)
The woman on this poster was conceived in a violent rape. Her mother wanted to abort her. Read Rebecca Kiessling's story (scroll down to it).
12% of mothers cited a physical health problem as contributing to their decision to have an abortion. Were these even life and death situations, or just concerns about being ill during pregnancy? The study doesn't say.
Occasionally you'll hear someone who includes as an exception children who will be born with "gross fetal abnormalities" or incurable diseases. 13% of abortions occur because the child is shown to have some sort of abnormality.
More than 90% of pregnancies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. (2) Even if that was somehow morally okay, there's a problem: you can't be 100% sure the child really has it. As wikipedia explains, "Due to the nature of screens, each has a significant chance of a false positive, suggesting a fetus with Down syndrome when, in fact, the fetus does not have this genetic abnormality."
Finally, I sometimes hear people blame the father for forcing the mother to have an abortion. This is certainly horrible, and I do not want to downplay it. But to provide a glimmer of hope, over the past 20 years there has been a significant decrease (p < .01) in women whose husbands/partners wanted them to have an abortion, from 24% in 1987 to 14% in 2004. Less than half of 1% of women listed that as their most important reason. At first I thought "That's great! Men are finally getting with the program and stepping it up!" And then I wondered how that reflected on the women who were still getting abortions. And then I wondered if the fathers even knew.
One more thing. Adoption was avoided as a topic in this study, but it came up anyway. "More than one-third of interview respondents said they had considered adoption and concluded that it was a morally unconscionable option because giving one's child away is wrong." WHAT?! But killing it isn't?! I don't think I can post on this topic anymore. It's just too depressing.
To end on a more uplifting note, check out the following very short video. (H/T Fumbling Toward Grace.)
1. The Guttmacher Institute is Planned Parenthood's "research arm." These numbers come from the 2005 article "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives." Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 37(3): 110-118. I think this will open it up as a pdf on your screen: www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf
I haven't actually read the whole thing yet - I was just wanting to double-check my numbers and did so using Table 2. From skimming, though, it seems their slant is that women who get abortions are being responsible. If any of you care to, I'd be interested in reading your thoughts on this article, either in comments or your own post (please make sure to link to it).
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome