First thing to tackle: Reducing Abortions--let me explain

[DuaneBidoux]

We have framed the entire issue of abortion wrong. We need to educate Christian evangelicals that the number one reasont that women get abortions is that they discover they're pregnant and don't have health insurance and thus decide to abort.

Make laws to restrict abortions and we will end up with nearly the same number of abortions and a lot more dead women. Getting health insurance for women and abortions will plumet because few women want to get an abortion and many will no longer have a practical reason to do so. Sure this won't stop abortions and the fact remains that there will always be abortions (and the Democratic party should stand clearly for the right of a woman to do so).

Think about the message to Christian evangelicals; With Republicans you got nowhere, give us a chance and abortions will become MUCH LESS frequent. Support our health care initiatives (which in their own right are Christian) and you will reduce the number of women getting abortions.

[ck4829]

1. Our mantra needs to be - Make Abortion Unnecessary

[jwirr]

19. That is very good. Also, it should be noted that it is more than

lack of health care. It is the whole "Affordable" question. When you cannot afford more children it is very hard. Raising the minimum wage is a start BUT there is a big drawback to higher wages that most of you will not recognize. As a single mother of the past I realize that higher wages do two things. The first is obvious - more income. The second is the fact that this higher wage will be absorbed by the lose of food stamps, health care and other benefits that have income ceilings. For instance, if that higher wage is even $1.00 above the health care ceiling many families will lose their health care. Same for food stamps. Subsidized housing rent will also go up according to your higher income. At the moment we are trying to give with one hand and take away with the other hand.

If congress wants to raise the minimum wage they need to take these things into consideration. We will not win any points for raising the number of people without health care. The way to handle this is to raise the wage and the food stamp & health care ceiling at the same time. They also need to look for a way to make housing absorb the increase.

This is not as easy as it looks.

[Island Blue]

2. Honestly, I think don't think its the abortions they care about .

They just don't want people having sex.

[JDPriestly]

21. The leaders don't want people having sex.

But the people want to have sex but no abortions. I think the original post has a very good idea. Mothers need help with medical problems and with providing for their babies' most basic needs. They get that help in other civilized countries. I know. I've lived there. New mothers and fathers especially first time mothers and fathers need the advice of pediatricians and psychologists on how to raise their new babies. They need to be told from the get-go that you should not leave a baby to cry for long periods, that you should never whip a child or slap a child or do a lot of other physically abusive things to a child, that you should not neglect children, that you must praise a child in order to develop the child's self-esteem. You would be shocked at how many American parents abuse their children because they really don't know better. Their parents abused them, and they think it is normal. We need universal healthcare in some form at least for children to the age of 18 in order to handle these issues. The appropriate people to give sex education are parents and doctors, not schoolteachers. Doctors should be talking to kids in early adolescence about the dangers of sex out of marriage or committed relationships, about young pregnancies, etc. Kids without insurance only see a doctor when they are really sick or injured. Every child who is born in the U.S. should see a doctor at regular intervals in the child's life. Other countries, including most of, if not all of, our NATO allies provide this kind of care. Let's reduce the number of abortions. While we are out it, let's go back to providing a guaranteed minimal income for each child so that no woman has an abortion because she feels she just can't afford to take care of a child or can't take care of a child on her own.

[iamahaingttta]

3. Amazing how many people don't understand this...

Really!

[Maat]

4. It depends upon how one defines 'abortion.'

Many radical-religious-righters define the Birth Control Pill as 'abortion,' alleging that it prevents implantation (so does Nature at least 50% of the time). The key is to say 'later-term abortions,' and yield nothing when it comes to reproductive rights.

I emphasize that we need to reverse cuts in child care, work training, medical care (Healthy Families out here in California), prenatal care and provision of birth control, in addition to cuts in foster-parenting pay (for when BioMom and BioDad just don't want to parent). As a retired social worker, I know how important these programs are.

The important thing is that I agree with your basic point; I've only added a few words.

;-)

Oh, yeah, and we need more medical research and better diagnostic tools, so that we find out when we have a disastrous prenatal situation earlier.

[Berry Cool]

5. This only works part of the way.

Christian evangelicals know that women don't just "discover" they're pregnant. They have sex first. And while Christian evangelicals don't have a problem with women doing that if they are married to the man they had the sex with, they have a big problem with women who are not married having sex, period.

The general standpoint of the Christian evangelical is that unmarried people should not be having sex--and that if they do, and pregnancy results, the outcome is a sacred life from the time of conception and thus abortion is murder.

While I'm sure they'd be somewhat receptive to the idea that health care initiatives will help decrease abortions, the problem is that health care initiatives don't play into the Republican concept of personal responsibility--you know, the one that says if you can't abstain until marriage and pregnancy happens, it's your own damn problem and now you have to solve it. (And of course, the way they believe you have to solve it is by having the baby.)

It's similar to the reason why birth control doesn't sell with evangelicals. Birth control appeals to their sense of personal responsibility but at the same time, it lets unmarried people have nonprocreative sex, which they believe is wrong.

What it all comes down to is that there's only one abortion prevention technique evangelicals will get wholly on board with: abstinence until marriage. And if you're married and you get pregnant, forget it. They see no reason why on earth you should regard that as a problem--even if you already have eleven kids and you're living in the depths of poverty. After all, if you couldn't afford number twelve, you should have gotten separate beds.

That's the problem.

[Maat]

7. Well-put.

That, to me, means that I'll never persuade my in-laws of my points (listed above); however, I might be able to bring some moderates my way on a common-sense basis (and there is always a SoCal version of each religious faith, and, in practice, there are many moderates out here).

Thoughts?

[jayctravis]

22. I think it's also wrapped up with the idea of immaculate conception.

It makes sense that if a person believe Jesus was born of a virgin that they wouldn't want to "chance" that He would be aborted.

I also agree it should be framed that abortions should become unecessary; provide sex education in schools, contraception, and health care to single moms.

Perhaps churches should fund the medical expenses for an unplanned pregnancy and assist with adoption. It's a walk-the-walk thing, but I think most of them consider it a "punishment" for an unmarried woman having sex.

[JDPriestly]

23. The few girls in my Unitarian church who have babies without

husbands seem to manage fine. Having a baby without being married seems to be a huge problem for the girls in my evangelical sister's church.

The right wing has the wrong attitude toward the children in our society. It is the responsibility of every American to make sure that every child born in this country has the opportunity to be the best person he or she can be. For me, that means we need to make sure that each child gets the basic things that are necessary to lead a productive life. No child should be hungry, without healthcare, or without educational opportunities. That's just fundamental.

Children are not born with the equipment to take personal responsibility. They have to learn how to do that from the adults around them. In addition to learning to take responsibility for themselves, children need to learn how to live with others, how to care for others without neglecting themselves. That they also have to learn from the adults around them. Child development studies show how children develop qualities like self-confidence that enable them to take personal responsibility. The information is available. As a society, we need to listen to experts on child development more carefully and decide our policies based on the lessons they teach, the things they have learned, not on the wishful thinking of right-wing demagogues. As a nation we have to take responsibility not just for the fetuses but for the children that result from the fetuses. Neither the fetuses nor the children can take responsibility for themselves. We are responsible for the children around us whether we have children or not.

[Tanuki]

6. But is that really the number one reason?

Do you have a reference for this? I want universal health insurance as much as anyone here, but let's make sure our talking points are based on valid data. My impression is that the reasons for seeking an abortion are often much more complex.

[Maat]

9. Good point.

That's why this retired social worker here argued that we have to fund several critial programs adequately.

[lcordero2]

8. I beg to differ

Abortions happen because a healthy enough economy AND safety net isn't in place so that the parent and child could excel.

[jwirr]

20. Or could even just survive.

[sampsonblk]

10. Yes!

I am with you on this. And if our side could deliver...I mean produce... If our side could have some progress to show on this issue, we might wake some people up on the other side.

[OzarkDem]

11. First thing? No, I don't think so

Starting off by promoting wedge issue policy is ridiculous. There are far too many problems facing the country right now to waste time and effort engaging in a battle over abortion.

If you want to talk about health care, talk about health care. Leave abortion out of it. Its the fastest way I can think of to sidetrack crucial health care reform.

Or maybe you already knew that.

[tyedyeto]

12. I don't know if that is the #1 reason

but I truly believe that educating teenagers as to why they get pregnant and how to prevent it, is the key. How to go about that education in today's federal/fundy environment will be difficult, but the possibility of educating the educators, parents, etc would go a long way toward fewer abortions.

[omega minimo]

13. This is completely misinformed, misguided & based on falsehood

"the number one reasont that women get abortions is that they discover they're pregnant and don't have health insurance and thus decide to abort"

Don't even know where you would get an insane concept like that. Please use DU to inform yourself and listen to wo/men who can help you. Don't spread this sort of nonsense here.

[Jade Fox]

14. You're right except....

you're making the mistake of being logical.

The true agenda of the anti-abortion movement is to control, restrict, and punish sexual behavior (in others) which they don't approve of. They are not really interested in reducing the number of abortions, but in crystallizing all reproductive choices made outside traditional marriage into a black and white moral agenda where those who stray have to pay. Witness the growing attempt to restrict access to all forms of birth-control. Abortion is only their first line of attack in a war to inflict the their own sex-phobic moral structure on everyone.

[tyedyeto]

16. Every state should have laws in which pharmacies must

have on duty a pharmacist who will prescribe EVERY prescription which enters that place of business.

NO more horror stories of women who have to go to several pharmacies to have their scripts filled, be they the so-called 'morning after' pill or regular birth control pills.

[Totally Committed]

15. I din't think I should have to have -- and I KNOW I don't want --

ANY man to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own reproductive system. The day there is a law telling you what you can and cannot do with your wahoo or whom you can impregnate, we'll talk. Until then, my reproductive system is mine. I have a heart and a soul and a mind, and can decide what to do with my ouw uterus, thank you.

Every woman should have CHOICE.

TC

[Kber]

17. Women with choices don't have abortions

No - it's not iron clad, but if you have health care, if you can afford to take care and raise a child, or alternatively, have access to mother friendly adoption services, if you know how to prevent unplanned pregnancies and have the resources and support to do so, you will reduce the # of abortions dramatically.

[Cerridwen]

18. Quite frankly...

I'm tired of both major political parties in this country using my uterus as a political football. Howzabout we get some male body parts and start flinging them around for a while? Let's see what happens when we legislate the use of male body parts and their role in the reproductive cycle.

The Democrats want abortion "safe, legal and rare".

Howzabout we go in the order stated...1 - SAFE, 2 - LEGAL and save RARE for when 1 and 2 are established and in place.

And howzabout we add, we don't worry about rare until contraception is safe, legal, and available to any and all who want it.

And howzabout we add, we don't' worry about rare until every girl and boy and every woman and man in the U.S. is 100% literate about contraception, pregnancy, safe sex, and oh, I dunno, maybe even 100% literate about sex.

Quit using my uterus for your football!

[Totally Committed]

24. Thank you!

I can't believe before we take home one of our soldiers, feed one more poor person, or raise the minimum wage, the most important thing -- to be done first -- is to get ahold of what's going on in women's uteruses. This is where this Party has gotten to. If his membership in DU is to be believed, this is not some extremist evenagelical neo-con Republican man who wrote this, it is a Democratic male -- obviously educated -- who thinks he should have a say in what happens in my reproductive system. Or, in my daughters', or in my grand-daughters'.... It blows my mind!

Men -- all men -- take care of your own business. You have no right whatsoever to have ANY OPINION AT ALL what happens to a woman's body. Like I said, until there is meaningful penis-planting legislation, you are being arrogant and disrespectful to have an opinion about any woman's Right to Choose.

Go stop the war or feed someone hungry, and get your opinions and your laws out of my uterus.

TC