Abortion wars

An on-ramp in my route to work is closed so, for the next few weeks, each drive takes me past the city's Planned Parenthood office. In front, on days when the weather isn't too bad, gather protesters trying to end abortions. Mostly they carry signs that read, "Pray to end abortion". Actually thinking about that demand brings up a couple of thoughts.

One is that the protesters are not praying to end abortion. They are protesting to end abortion. They may be praying as well but clearly they have decided that prayer alone is not going to get the job done. Even if god is interested in ending abortions, (though given his reported history of genocide, infanticide, and a world wide flood makes it hard to imagine he is) apparently he expects people to do something on their own. Prayer isn't working. Protesting is really working to well either. Even if the protesters succeed in getting abortions outlawed they will not succeed in eradicating them. Abortions have been performed throughout history and, given technologies available today, will not be ended with a law. What will happen is that women less well off economically will have a harder time finding a safe alternative and will suffer being killed and maimed at a higher rate than the well to do. Those well to do will just spend a little more on travel expenses. (Or, in the case of the middle class white girl living in a "red state" who is most likely to get pregnant, Daddy will.)

If, on the other hand, one really does want to end abortions for all practical purposes, we know how to get that done. In fact it is actually pretty simple and involves only a few policy changes. One is open, honest, and real sex education for the young. Sure this would include some frank discussions that would likely embarrass the religious fanatics among us because, well, we are talking about fucking. Religious people seem to talk mostly about not fucking, though occasionally they will allow as married people fucking is okay. But for the most part rational discussions about fucking are off the religious table. Too bad really, with most kids no longer growing up in an environment (like a farm or ranch) where sex is nothing but nature being nature, basic, factual information about sex is necessary. It would help if we included some basic information of the emotional and biological realities that make fucking nearly universal in the animal kingdom. (Of which we are a part, thank you.) A little basic information about various expressions of sexuality, along with discussions of a free society's need for its citizens to be responsible, tolerant, and honest, would help as well. The incentive to pro-create is fundamental, nearly universal, and will easily overwhelm any dictate of "abstinence only". (Something the teen pregnancy rate in the red states makes undeniable.)

Another required policy change is health care; as in making it available to everyone in the country. Health care that included free birth control completely at the discretion of every woman without a doctor's prescription, a husband's approval, or a priest's blessing. Ending abortions is as easy as ending unwanted pregnancies. Which is pretty much the end of the discussion. If one really wants to end abortions one would do everything possible to make sure every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy. It seems rather self evident that sex education and birth control are integral to making that happen.

Yet if I walked up to those protesting outside of Planned Parenthood and offered my help in ending abortions by working with them to elect people who will implement and fund real sex education and universal health care including birth control, I don't get the impression they would be very enthusiastic. In fact my guess is they would see me as one of the enemies for even mentioning sex education and birth control. And that makes me think they are not really interested in ending abortions at all. What they are interested in is dictating to others how they should live, who they should love, and (most importantly) to which god they should pledge their allegiance and how that allegiance should be expressed. All ideas, by the way, that should be anathema to a free society.