ongoing conversation

a few weeks ago someone brought up the topic of abortions and birth control, stating that they should be made illegal. we talked for a few hours.

here's some of what came up:

The numbers do not support the statement that abortion is being used as a method of birth control.  Abortions are painful and traumatizing, and just as with a miscarriage - once the fetus is dead, it still nneds to be birthed by the woman carrying it.  all that labor, and no new life to come from it.  Having spoken with friends who have miscarried, the pain is unbearable, and i doubt that there could be many women out there whowould choose to go through this repeatedly rather then use condoms, a diaphragm, the pill, or have their tubes tied.

one HUGE problem i have with the "pro-life" groups is that there is no support for the mother after she gives birth.  she does not get to speak with someone, she doesn't get to know that her child will be ok, and the odds are she doesn't even get a moment to say goodbye.

instead, a pregnant woman who is not going to be raising the child has these options:

She can go through pregnancy, with all the physical, psychological, and emotinal rollercoasters that come with it, only to give birth and lose the child.  Once she has given the child away, here's a look at the  most likely trajectory of its life, unfortunately:

The child will probably not get placed with a family right away.  if it isn't adopted by the age of two, the odds drop dramatically that it ever will be - by 5 the odds are almost nil.  instead the child will either live in a facility or be placed in foster care.

how many kids go through foster and emerge as succssful, functional adults?

sadly, this kid will probably end up either abused, killed, or in jail, like this little girl.

of the people i've spoken to, we've reached a consensus that most of us would have amuch harder time bringing a child into that life.

so... there are now pharmacists who are refusing to dispense the pill based on the idea that it kills life (it doesn't - if you get pregnant and keep taking the pill, you shoud stop as it's harmful to the fetus, but the only scenario in which it can be misconstrued that way is if you get pregnant and then take 3 or 4 pills at once, which is an overdose and not recommended for ANY drug).  instead they would rather have these women get pregnant?  so we can what - start the cycle over?

the fact is that if abortion were to be made illegal in the US, the next fight the "pro-life" group would wage is against birth control.  that's the fight they're gearing up for now, that's the fight that led us to abortion being legal in the first place.

would you rather have birth control and safe abortion, or would you rather have unwanted pregnancies leading to potentially fatal attempts at aborting and a greater strain on the foster care system?