Is There An "Unacceptable" Abortion Rate?
As I've stated before, I support the right of a woman to choose to get an abortion -- free of government interference -- in almost any circumstance.
But a question recently occurred to me: out of all the pregnancies in a given area, a certain percentage are being terminated. Is there a point where that percentage of terminated pregnancies is so high that it indicates a social malfunction? That something is broken in a particular society?
Do you mean in the US, or are you including places like China?
Not China.
Yes, I would assume there would be a point, but if its to exist it should be as an indicator to reacquaint them with safer sex practices, as they are far less expensive, and far less likely to result in medical complications compared to abortions.Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
. . .
It's also a loaded question.
Abortion rate compared to what.....percent of sexually active women, live birth rate, coitus rate, preventive birth control rate?
Among types of elective abortion are things like selective abortions (for IVF multiples), aborting for fetal anomalies, preserving the life of the woman, or for rape/incest.
I just went with per year. A rate can be an amount over time, like the rate of speed of car being 60 miles per hour.
. . .
I understood you. Dread's question is loaded, though.
Japanese have a low coital rate, a low birth rate, and (as far as I know) a low abortion rate. I suppose if some statistics compared that with (whoever has) the highest coital rate, and pregnancy rate.....the abortion rate might be the same.
Sure. So what? Certainly no one wants anyone to have an unwanted baby. Right? So abortions are a symptom. Treating it would probably entail elevating the standard of living, education among females and why not males while we're at it, availability of contraceptives and making them socially acceptable, and so on and so forth. But no one can afford to subsidize that in this economic climate, so abortions and unwanted babies it is.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Obviously most abortions are a 'mistake' in that there are fairly good mechanisms in place to prevent pregnancy in the first place. If these mechanisms aren't used or are inadequately available, this generally indicates something is wrong with society. Many people are probably unaware of correct birth control practices and practice poor safety with regard to STD transmission and the like. High abortion rates may also be indicative of a high degree of promiscuity which may not necessarily be a bad thing but often has bad externalities (stable family structures of some sort tend to result in better economic and educational outcomes).
I wouldn't say that family planning (whether with an abortion of birth control) is necessarily an indication that things are bad - sure, maybe people don't want to bring a child into the world, but it might not be a problem with the society but rather a changing system of values and expectations that favor investing more in a smaller pool of children than having a large brood.
I'd say in an ideal world every pregnancy will be wanted, and thus there would be minimal need for abortions (outside some medical interventions). Doesn't change that they should probably be legal, but it does mean we should try to aim for that ideal world.
No.
We have ivory-towered dingbats complain those on the lower levels of society. the exact same people who wanted to have an abortion in the first place because they knew they couldn't provide for their child, but they were too poor to afford an abortion because an ivory-towered dingbat was QQing. Funny how it all works out.
Standard of living, education, and availability of contraception are a good start. But not all unwanted pregnancies are among poor, ignorant, oppressed girls. Well educated, affluent people with easy access to BC find themselves in the position of dealing with unwanted pregnancies, too. There is also the issue of Self esteem, especially among young girls, that can lead to sexual activity, usually unprotected. Unprotected, not because she unaware of condoms or could not acquire them, but because she was pressured into it or impatient herself. Because she (he) thought of sex like an addict thinks of drugs, as a way to feel better to escape the pressures of their existence.
The worst job in the world is better than being broke and homeless
Conversely, is there a point where too many condoms are sold and used in society? Abortion should not be used as birth control, certainly not repeatedly!, but that's what it often amounts to. The fact that it's the shittiest choice after the "rhythm method" means people aren't thinking as well as they should, but people make unhealthy choices in other aspects of their lives all the time, so
Well sure, accidents happen and I'm not going to fault the girl trying to get through med school terminating the result of the last Christmas party. But when she's doing her fifth in under 10 years, maybe it's time for some intro-spection there.
Girls young enough to have sex for the social perks probably shouldn't be having that much sex to begin with, but so long as they are, they should have the option of getting rid of the proto-bastard before it ruins their lives. Again, it's a blemish on the surrounding culture.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
in a perfect world the rate of abortion would be zero.
But this world isn't perfect: as such the only acceptable abortion rate is to have zero percent of abortions being done in backalleys or other medically inacceptable ways because people can't pay for a proper abotion, or because social taboo prevents people from getting the care needed.
Only government can provide that cover.
In other words "free of government interference" is, given the realities of this world, nonsense. If it read "without government pressure" there'd be a case.
This was a loaded question, of sorts. In that recent numbers in New York City show that 40% of pregnancies in NYC are terminated. The vast majority (88%) are first 12 weeks of a pregnancy. But the proportion of terminated pregnancies are much higher among racial minorities and historically disadvantaged groups.
Obviously this makes New York the target of religious folks who want to save us from ourselves. But the numbers are still high enough to provoke some questions about whether the high rate is a result of legal access, financial assistance and a lack of social stigma...or if perhaps something is going wrong at other levels of our social fabric.
1% or 99%, the percentage is irrelevant.
Do you think so? Why?
If you have a high proportion of pregnancies being terminated, that means a lot of people are getting pregnant who don't want to give birth to a child. That either means there is a failure of public health and education (as birth control prior to abortion is almost always a better and safer alternative) or a failure of our economic/social/etc. milieu to allow people the option of having children (though I find it unlikely that a large proportion of the cited abortions are a result of people who wanted a kid but only realized after they got pregnant that they can't afford/manage one - more likely the large proportion is just lazy post hoc birth control).
The percentage would be irrelevant if we cast this as a moral question (is abortion right?) rather than a policy question, but I don't think most of us are doing that. I don't know what an 'appropriate' number would be - for that we'd have to look at a detailed breakdown of pregnancy terminations and reasons behind them - but in general abortion should be (societally, not legally) a last resort.
edit: a quick look at some statistics indicates this is a decreasing trend - live births in New York have been stable around 123-128k since the late 90s. In the same period, the number of abortions has dropped quite a bit (~7k in the last decade). So maybe this is a non-story?
Last edited by wiggin; 02-02-2011 at 01:56 AM.
I thought I read something from 2007 indicating it was an increasing trend, but looking for it now...where did you find that stat?
I dug through here to find the birth information: http://cbsnewyork.files.wordpress.co...01/2009sum.pdf See Figure 4.3; Figures 4.6 and 4.7 are also interesting, though they don't get the actual numbers so it's hard to see if the numbers are changing much. For the rest, one of your articles had the number of abortions, which has decreased from some 94k to 87k and change since 2000.
The bottom line is that there certainly seems to be little change in the percentage of abortions in NYC in the last decade, and it's hard to tell from the graph if there's been a big difference in the 90s or not.
edit: the document does admit that there are some irregularities in data collection for abortions, so I don't know how accurate the numbers are. Either way, it doesn't seem like this statistic is new.
It's certainly believable, though as you say it's tough to tell if the percentage has changed much. It looks like it has remained fairly stable...
On what measurement is it that abortions are a "bad thing"?
If abortion is murder and should be outlawed then 1% is murder that should have been outlawed just as much as 99% is.
If abortion is perfectly fine and reasonable then 99% is just as perfectly fine and reasonable as 1% is.
If abortion is something that is not ideal but should happen depending upon the circumstances - then it is the circumstances that matter for each individual case (whether that results in 1% or 99%) and not a percentage.
That's too simplistic, that is not the sole reason for abortions. What about medical grounds? I have a friend of the family who has a rare and debilitating genetic disorder that only affects male carriers and results in a painful death at about age 12. She was one of three children and both her brothers died at a young age and for her as a young child it was a "relief" when her second brother died as he was no longer in such pain. She really wanted children and her first child was female, born. The second conception was male - tested for this disease and had inherited it, so she reluctantly had an abortion. The third conception was also male but hadn't inherited the gene so was born fine, she won't be having any more children now. Each case is individual and it is the individual cases, not the percentages that matter.If you have a high proportion of pregnancies being terminated, that means a lot of people are getting pregnant who don't want to give birth to a child. That either means there is a failure of public health and education (as birth control prior to abortion is almost always a better and safer alternative) or a failure of our economic/social/etc. milieu to allow people the option of having children (though I find it unlikely that a large proportion of the cited abortions are a result of people who wanted a kid but only realized after they got pregnant that they can't afford/manage one - more likely the large proportion is just lazy post hoc birth control).
My mother had my little brother at age 34 and had to go for genetic testing as 35+ is a dangerous age to have kids - it becomes a lot more likely to result in genetic defects. People are having kids at later ages now (I was born when she was 18, that would be considered very young nowadays). They decided when she became pregnant (though it wasn't planned, she was on birth control I know but it failed) that if he was healthy he'd be born, if not aborted. If more people now try to have kids over 35 and use the same logic then a higher proportion will be aborted by people who wanted kids.
Agreed with the first bit regarding morals, hence my part above, but if you're looking at detailed reasons then that is far too complicated for a simplistic percentage. In one sample 5% may be unreasonable. In another sample 15% may be perfectly reasonable.The percentage would be irrelevant if we cast this as a moral question (is abortion right?) rather than a policy question, but I don't think most of us are doing that. I don't know what an 'appropriate' number would be - for that we'd have to look at a detailed breakdown of pregnancy terminations and reasons behind them - but in general abortion should be (societally, not legally) a last resort.
People are not uniform, their background is not uniform, therefore there is no individual percentage that shows "below this OK, above this wrong".
I'm ignoring moral arguments for now, so that leaves options 2 or 3. I side with option 3 since preventing a pregnancy in the first place is generally cheaper/easier and safer than an abortion. There are other arguments that can be made - that a high abortion rate is correlated with some other social ill - but even sticking with the basics, I think it's best to minimize the number of abortions we have to carry out.
Yes, yes, of course. I highly doubt this accounts for 40% of pregnancies, but I've recognized that there are plenty of valid reasons for abortions that are not rooted in some social problem. Even in a 'perfect' society where there were no unwanted pregnancies there would still be some basal level of necessary abortions; I just find it hard to believe that it accounts for a significant portion of pregnancies.That's too simplistic, that is not the sole reason for abortions. What about medical grounds? I have a friend of the family who has a rare and debilitating genetic disorder that only affects male carriers and results in a painful death at about age 12. She was one of three children and both her brothers died at a young age and for her as a young child it was a "relief" when her second brother died as he was no longer in such pain. She really wanted children and her first child was female, born. The second conception was male - tested for this disease and had inherited it, so she reluctantly had an abortion. The third conception was also male but hadn't inherited the gene so was born fine, she won't be having any more children now. Each case is individual and it is the individual cases, not the percentages that matter.
Of course. I've said it before - I don't know what an ideal number would be, and obviously it's going to shift with your population demographics - maternal age, genetic disease prevalence, yadda yadda yadda. Obviously to really answer this question the 40% number would have to be backed up by data showing the stated reasons for said abortions. Given the demographic trends in the link I gave Dread, though (especially ones showing a much higher proportion of pregnancies ending in abortion among younger women) I'd bet that the majority of the abortions were used as post hoc birth control. These are essentially unnecessary abortions that point to a greater need for public health education given the aforementioned costs and risks associated with an abortion.Agreed with the first bit regarding morals, hence my part above, but if you're looking at detailed reasons then that is far too complicated for a simplistic percentage. In one sample 5% may be unreasonable. In another sample 15% may be perfectly reasonable.
People are not uniform, their background is not uniform, therefore there is no individual percentage that shows "below this OK, above this wrong".
Dread's question was:Wiggin, it sounds like you agree with everything I said then? To simply give an abstract percentage and say "this high" indicates something is broken in a particular society is too simplistic, life is too complicated for that. The circumstances change from one population to another too.Is there a point where that percentage of terminated pregnancies is so high that it indicates a social malfunction? That something is broken in a particular society?
Obviously a single number is ridiculous; if that's all you're saying, fine. But you can come up with reasonable estimates of a 'target' abortion/pregnancy ratio based on demographics and surveys and I guarantee it would be far less than 40%; the average in the US is about 25%, and that includes lots of retroactive birth control.
Medical reasons, while increasing in number due to better prenatal screening and advanced maternal age, can't account for more than a few percentage of pregnancies for the simple reason that most babies and mothers are healthy (and most pregnancies still happen with young, healthy mothers). Assuming we're not considering something like gender selection to be a valid medical reason for aborting a fetus, the number of genetic defects is quite small compared to the total population (added up, I'd be shocked if it was more than a 1-2% chance). Even throwing in things like ectopic pregnancies, maternal cancers, and the like, we're still talking about single digits. The exact 'threshold' is obviously a fluctuating number but we can definitely make some broad statements.
More generally, I think Dread's question was not 'is there X number we should target' but more 'even if abortion should be legal is the large-scale use of elective abortion evidence of a broader problem that we should try to minimize?' This would be a short and stupid discussion if he actually meant the former question.
I took it to mean the former, he asked regarding a more specific percentage it appears (even the title refers to "rate"), hence my response. Yes there are clearly times when preventative birth control would be far more sensible than abortions. I've heard of some referring to unwanted pregnancies as a form of STI and clearly the levels of STI's in society as a whole are also indicative of a problem. But to put a figure on it would be overly simplistic.
I think it may also point to a need for the further empowerment of women (in social terms) in these groups. Possibly also less drunken idiot sex, affairs, etc
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Too many condoms? Never, they make the best water balloons.
Why would the abortions 1-4 be 'acceptable' while the fifth in ten years would cause for intro-speculumation? Not disagreeing with you, just curious if you were being absolute on the number or just pulled one out of the air. I would thik that if she is a med student and presumably intelligent, she would quickly see error of her ways. But, then, nobody's perfect.Well sure, accidents happen and I'm not going to fault the girl trying to get through med school terminating the result of the last Christmas party. But when she's doing her fifth in under 10 years, maybe it's time for some intro-spection there.
I agree, on all counts. But the opener asked, I think, at what point is she just a fucking machine who needs to be spayed?Girls young enough to have sex for the social perks probably shouldn't be having that much sex to begin with, but so long as they are, they should have the option of getting rid of the proto-bastard before it ruins their lives. Again, it's a blemish on the surrounding culture.
The worst job in the world is better than being broke and homeless
rummy, she was saying that using abortion isn't optimal as the only or main BC method. It's not totally without risk to the woman's health, especially if performed repeatedly.
Wiggin is right, I'm not talking about a specific target. But I think there is a number where you have to take a step back and wonder if something is breaking down. Behind that statistic is an enormous amount of emotional and financial drain, not to mention risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
So let's say we're all upset and wringing our hands. What should actually be done, mr. Senator?
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
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