Abortion III – From the Perspective of Society

In my prior post, I noted that abortion needs to be viewed from two perspectives. Firstly from that of the individual woman facing a crisis pregnancy and secondly from the perspective of society at large. I addressed the former in the last post, let’s consider the role of our society.

Everyone, prochoice and prolife, agrees that abortions are bad and that ideally all fetuses should be birthed and become wanted and loved children. No sane person wants to see fetuses destroyed. And yet all sane and reasonable people realize that a crisis pregnancy can be a tremendously disruptive an/or financially devastating experience for a mother who carries an unplanned child to term.

So, the question is, what role should we, as a society play in affecting the decision of a woman facing a crisis pregnancy in the US on whether to opt for an abortion?

As I see it, there are two basic approaches. The Prolife MAGA approach is to pass laws that will mandate that the government greatly restrict or totally prohibit abortions such that women in crisis pregnancies will be criminalized if they abort their fetuses. This is done with the best of intentions, of course, to protect the life of the unborn child.

(It is worth noting how ironic it is that the very people who are normally so against government intrusion in people’s lives such as restricting assault rifles, are in favor of the government dictating the reproductive choices of individual women.)

The second approach, the one preferred by the Prochoice Dems, is to allow the woman in a crisis pregnancy to make her own decision with limited government intervention, but to have society do its part to make conditions such that the woman will choose life. The Dems promote universal healthcare, paid maternity leave, and government assisted affordable childcare – all policies opposed by MAGA’s.

Below is a chart showing the number of abortions in the US since 1972, the year prior to Roe. After Roe, abortions rose to a peak of 1,429,247 in 1990 when Bush ’41 was president. In most years since then, the number of abortions has fallen. They fell much more when Democrats were presidents. They fell for 11 consecutive years until 2017, the last year of Obama’s presidency. At that point, the rate of abortions was much lower than it had been PRIOR to Roe. Of note, beginning in 2018, abortions have increased for each year we have data for.

The question I ponder is this: Is it better for our society to pass laws that restrict and criminalize abortions so that we can make the statement as a society that we are “prolife, even if abortions do not decline, but may actually increase; or, is it better to be more permissive in allowing abortions but set up conditions such that women choose to bear rather than abort their children? Based on the empirical evidence – that seems to be what happens.

Would Jesus prefer to see the policies which resulted in abortions actually declining or would He concur that making laws that restrict and criminalize abortion, regardless of the outcome is preferable? My reading of the NT is that Jesus was not big on making and following laws. His focus was on changing hearts. I suspect he would opt for the compassion for the mother approach that results in fewer abortions rather than enacting and enforcing harsh laws.

Relevant Comments:

  • Don WhiteThe hypocrisy of most self identified “pro-life” folk is stunning. They present as forced birth government control folk feeling no obligation to feed or care for the life of any baby or mother
    • .ActiveDaniel RunkleDon White totally ignorant statement about the Pro Life efforts. Pro Life ministries do all the things you claim we don’t, and have been doing since the 80’s.Most of the pro choice arguments are being undergirded with lies. That’s because they ultimately come from the throne of the Father of Lies, and are spread by his children. It ultimately results in behaviors involving stealing, murdering and destroying. This is what Spong Theology supports. It’s a theology that has been judged, is being judged, and will be judged.
  • ActiveDaniel RunkleProlife MAGA approach is to individually support prolife crisis pregnancy centers that provide free ultrasounds to Mom’s in order to educate them about the baby growing inside their womb. Prochoice Dem approach is to fund Planned Parenthood Centers who then discourage the use of ultrasounds, and promote Margaret Sanger’s Eugenics approach to cleanse the world of “undesirables.”
  • David LakvoldThe short answer is abortion is a sin. Abortion kills babies. It is that simple. What leads to pregnancy? Sex. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. Dave asked what would Jesus want? The answer is stop sinning. If you don’t have sex outside of marriage you won’t get pregnant. Who would have ever thought that? If you are not pregnant you won’t “need” an abortion. Problem solved. Morality Matters.
    • ActiveKathryne Downing HartDavid Lakvold and the women who have sex within marriage for the purpose of having a very wanted baby? What are they to do when that pregnancy threatens their life and the child has little to no chance of survival? Right now those women are having their care delayed until the point that they have sepsis or are at death’s door rather than being proactive and terminating the pregnancy before it results in irreparable harm to a woman’s future ability to have children.
    • David LakvoldKathryne Downing Hart the condition you described occurs rarely. According to CDC data, the risk of dying as a direct result of pregnancy and childbirth is less than 10 in 100,000 (0.01%) live births and 22 in 100,000 (0.02%) for African-Americans. One out of 8,475 women (0.01%) dies from pregnancy complications. The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. According to the CDC the estimated number of pregnancies in 2007 was 6,369,000 (4,131,000 live births, 1,152,000 induced abortions, and 1,087,000 fetal losses). Subtracting pregnancies due to rape there are 1,119,899 abortions that have no reason other than convenience. If rape and the health of women make up less than 1% of abortions, how do you explain the remaining 99%? As for rapist, I’d agree for total castration and in some cases having their lives terminated. Who would qualify for the final punishment? Incestuous persons, persons who commit multiple rapes, and rapes with battery. With the advent of “the pill” and other preventative measures there should be no reason to get pregnant now days. Lazy and passion are not expectable excuses for murdering babies.
      • ActiveKathryne Downing HartDavid Lakvold rare happens. My son is one of 30 children in the world with his rare genetic condition. Turns our my husband and I are carriers. Are we not allowed to have future biological children unless we want to risk watching another child die? Total abortion ban groups are trying to end IVF the procedure that allows us to screen for this disease and avoid terminating a pregnancy. That same procedure allows us to donate affected embryos to create gene treatments to save the lives of future children born with this degenerative disease.In addition to that after my son’s birth I had a rare scar pregnancy where the embryo implanted in my Csection scar. This isn’t covered by Louisiana’s exceptions according to the LDH list. This is always fatal to the baby and it will kill the mother or result in a hysterectomy if the mom does not have a miscarriage or abort before the end of the first trimester. It’s impossible to know this before 6 weeks. Why should I have to lose my ability to have children or risk leaving my disabled child without his primary caregiver so that someone else’s conscience can be clear?Using statistics to downplay rare occurrences doesn’t remove the very deadly consequences that result from these ill thought total abortion bans.As David pointed out there are other ways to reduce the total number of abortions without increasing the death of mothers.
    • ActiveKathryne Downing HartDavid Lakvold if you want to reduce abortions by 99% and there was a way to do that without mother’s dying would you be for it? To David’s point abortions had a greater decline under Progressive policies. Maternal mortality rates also have better outcomes. Or is that unacceptable because it requires the community to take a role in support of the mother and child?My disabled son is alive and being educated today because of those community services like Medicaid and public education. He would have died long ago without community support.
    • ActiveKathryne Downing HartDavid Lakvold the decision should be left to the parents, their doctor, and God. Government shouldn’t have a role. Our Legislature can’t fathom every medical exception needed and making it a crime punishable by fines and prison has resulted in doctors refusing to provide care rather than make a judgement call on a condition not specifically listed.While I understand our Government has protected guns more than healthcare as a Christian I can’t support restricting gun ownership less than this procedure when individuals use guns to commit murder as well.
    • ActiveDavid TreppendahlDavid Lakvold Jesus felt much more comfortable with sinners than he did with law makers and law enforcers. He showed His greatest compassion for sinners and people in great need and his greatest contempt for the pharisees. While I am asking the question, which approach do I think more aligns with Jesus’ teachings, I am, like the Founders, not proposing that we base our laws on specific religious laws or catechisms. Sin and the Scriptures are not mentioned a single time in any of our founding documents – including the 180,000 words in the Federalist papers. So saying public policy should be policy which is not “sinful” is totally at odds with the US Constitution.
    • David LakvoldDavid Treppendahl your choice of words is poor. Let’s focus on the word “comfortable.” Your description of Jesus is wrong. Everyone on the planet is and was a sinner, except for Him. He socialized with those who knew they were on the outside of the religious system that existed in Israel at the time. A fertile ground for evangelism. Jesus mocked the religious and political leaders because they falsely believed being a descendant of Abraham was somehow going to save them. They created a false religion that is based on works, not faith. It is faith alone in Christ alone that will save, nothing else. A lot of things weren’t mentioned in the Federalist papers or Constitution. What those document present is the philosophical framework on which laws are based and to be based. That is why Constitutional intent is the focus of many cases before the Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade is an example of distorting Constitutional intent (right to privacy + really bad logic = contorted and wrong opinion). The Bible was a critical part of establishing the philosophical framework on which the Constitution is based. Murder is a sin and yet that word doesn’t appear in the Federalist papers or Constitution yet there are laws that prohibit it and proscribed punishments for it.
    • David LakvoldKathryne Downing Hart I have an autistic son and love him and am sacrificing my life to ensure he can be taken care beyond my life span. My wife feels the same way and is also sacrificing herself, I’d say much more than me. I wouldn’t change a thing about our lives, nor would she. I’m very sorry that you have endured hardship, pain, and the loss of a child. But understand laws are made to meet the needs of a whole community not the statistical outliers. My problem is David consistently confuses “what would Jesus do?” with his non-Biblical beliefs on a wide range of topics. He often frames arguments with his “Christian view” but he is far from the truth. As an example, he recently quoted Karl Marx and said the statement was a Bible verse. I pointed it out and provided the full quote. I wonder if that will make it into his book. The Bible is clear on the value of life. I confess that I am not smart enough to know how to handle outliers, sigma six deviations (this is an event six deviations from the mean). What I want is for 99% of the abortions to stop. I don’t know how to answer your circumstance. But your condition cannot be used to justify the other 99% of abortions. That kind of over generalization is dangerous on many levels.

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