All other considerations aside, 1/5 pregnancies end in miscarriage. Criminalize abortion and you clog up an already clogged up justice system wherein police have to waste their time investigating miscarriages as being potential abortions. I'm not exaggerating; we've already seen this happen. Call me crazy, but I'd rather the police not waste their time putting women who miscarry through the investigative wringer. You can sneer all you want about pro-choicers saying that people want to police their bodies, but if you want to criminalize abortion, then that's exactly what is going to end up happening, especially if you actually know anything about women's bodies.
I'll go a bit further than that, though. In anti-choice countries, if the woman's health care could cause the pregnancy to fail? The pregnancy is prioritized. Women have died of cancer during their pregnancies when they were denied chemotherapy, because the chemo would likely have caused an abortion. So the woman gets to die with the fetus. Pro-life policies in action, everybody. Wtg.
Heck, I'll go even further. Talking specifically about the USA? We have a very high rate of maternal deaths, and it's rising. Having a child is an expensive and dangerous experience worldwide, but it is far more dangerous and expensive in the USA than it is in, say, Canada. Forcing women who cannot afford the extremely expensive process of having a child in the US health care system puts them in danger, and our maternal mortality rate is currently on par with SAUDI ARABIA as is.
You wanna decrease the rate of abortions? So do I. Here's how you can do it in a way that isn't idiotic:
* Support policies that reduce poverty. Support policies that reduce the cost of pregnancy and child-rearing. This is the #1 reason why US women have abortions. They can't afford to undergo pregnancy (which is far more dangerous than an abortion, btw), but they can afford a pill.
* Support the spread of birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring. Abstinence only does not work; over 90% of Americans have pre-marital sex. If you want practical solutions to this, then people need to get off their high horses.
Making it illegal doesn't stop it; it just makes it more dangerous. Criminalizing doesn't stop it; it just impedes our justice system and makes a lot of women who miscarry miserable.
Mofuji posted...
If you cannot be responsible and take control of your own bodily functions, then why should I, or any tax payer, have to foot the bill for you?
Seems you don't know much of anything about the subject. This doesn't happen. Oh, but I'll have to help you pay for your Viagra someday.
Most of that happens in third world countries where abortion is already illegal. Spreading birth control wouldn't work like that. You would need to properly teach how to use them too.