Bill Clinton said that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare." I think most people can get behind this idea.
I also understand that for people who are against abortion, believing that it's always fetal "murder," it's difficult to cede any ground on the issue. However, most people who have a moral objection to abortion do so on the basis of religious belief, and we live in a civil society, which, on paper, at least, separates the laws of religion from the laws of state.
I can understand some above using the wording of abortion as birth control, in the sense that, yes, when a woman becomes pregnant, and for whatever her reasons, or hers and her partner's reasons, they decide they cannot have a baby at this time, then, yes, it is a form of birth control. I would say, though, it's a last resort for most.
An unintended (most likely) consequence of the anti-abortion movement in the US has been the limiting of access to birth control, particularly for students and low-income women, due to the closing of family planning/women's health care clinics in this country, because one of the many things they provided were abortions. (Which also endangers women's health due to lack of access to regular PAP smears, pelvic exams and mammograms at low-cost.) But, obviously, if women have a harder time accessing birth control, they're more likely to find themselves pregnant when they don't want to/can't afford to be. This hinders the slogan above in the "rare" category.
And this is why I bristle a bit at the notion that women use abortion as birth control. Several of you have said it. As I said just above, I can accept a narrow definition of that, if that's what you mean, but it sounds to me a bit like moralizing. (Don't get after me
@Federberg for reading in. I'm trying to get at what people mean.) Is anyone suggesting that women are being careless with birth control and relying on abortion as a backstop? Surely that happens, but I wouldn't call it rampant. No woman who doesn't want to be pregnant wants to get pregnant in the first place, and THEN have to deal with it, even if it might not fuss them morally to have an abortion. Even the most cavalier person would consider that it's expensive and painful to have an abortion.
As to the choices made, even if they are "economic,"
@shawnbm said this: "So many lives snuffed out who could have done so much, or perhaps so little, but they could have lived." What about the life of the woman who actually IS alive and will have her dreams and otherwise potential hampered by a child she is not ready for? This is why it is a "wimmins" issue, as
@britbox rather disdainfully writes. Because women's academic and economic progress is directly tied to when and how they decide to have children. Poor women who have children young tend to stay in poverty. Especially if they have them alone, which they often do. (I'll get to the abdication of the responsibility of men in this at the end.)
@shawnbm snuck this one in: "The young women still protesting and demanding birth control on demand even
beyond viability...." "Beyond viability" implies late-term abortions. This is such a bugaboo that the right uses to freak people out. Late-term abortions are rare (statistics below,) but why NOT birth control on demand? And why not protest for it? Men and women have sex ALL.THE.TIME and pregnancies are an outcome of it. If you don't want a population explosion, (which is bad for the planet, and those who already live in it,) and if you don't want to see more abortions, give women easy access to birth control. That seems obvious to me. Not you?
As to late-term abortions, I have a stat that says in 2020, 93% of abortions in the US were performed in the first trimester, i.e., prior to viability. And we know that most late-term abortions are about an inviable fetus and saving the life of the mother. Late-term abortions are very sad things, and usually happen to people that wanted the baby. Stop buying the propaganda, please.
This is a very interesting article from the Pew Research Center on abortion in the US, which includes the data above, as promised:
Here is a look at data on the number of legal abortions and other related measures that take place in the United States each year.
www.pewresearch.org
This article also speaks to this from
@Federberg: "I would like to understand your view about
the statistical data which shows that the majority of the abortions are being done by women who have multiple abortions."
He hasn't provided his own statistical data, but this from that article:
