Posted on 01/08/2014 7:15:19 PM PST by Morgana
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 3, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While abortion advocates have long maintained that late-term abortions are almost always procured by devastated mothers whose babies have received fatal diagnoses and aren’t expected to survive long after birth, an analysis by a network of crisis pregnancy centers of a recent study paints a different picture.
When researchers with CareNet dug into the data of the recent Turnaway Study (see previous coverage here and here), which was conducted by pro-choice advocates, they found that most women in the study who sought late-term abortions were between the ages of 20 and 24 and were in unstable relationships and had financial problems.
These women typically discovered they were pregnant later (12 weeks on average, compared to 5 weeks for those who sought earlier abortions), and were more likely to fight with the father over whether to have the abortion at all. It also took them longer to come up with the money for an abortion.
The CareNet team quoted one woman interviewed by the Turnaway Study’s authors who waited until 21 weeks to seek an abortion because, “I couldn’t afford it.”
“They told me it was going to be $650, [but] by the time I was able to raise the $650, they had to do a different procedure, and so the price went up,” the woman said. “The price jumped to $1,850 … and they don’t take insurance.”
The Turnaway Study tracked around 200 women who were refused abortions. Many of them sought late-term abortions, which was the reason they were turned away.
Chris Slattery, National Director of the EMC FrontLine Pregnancy centers, told LifeSiteNews the study “conforms to our experience” with women facing crisis pregnancies.
“Rarely do we find true medical emergencies amongst those considering abortion in late term pregnancies,” Slattery told LSN. “We often find emotional coercion by family and close friends, abandonment by the father, and financial stress is what most often drives expectant mothers to abort late in pregnancy.”
About 15,000 late-term abortions are performed every year in the U.S. – about 1.5% of the total number.
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“Women who consider late-term abortion often do so from a place of desperation, and, perhaps, fear,” said CareNet CEO Roland Warren. “Yet, abortion only complicates the difficulties in her situation — and late-term abortion involves not only real suffering for the fetus but also serious risks to maternal health.”
Abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation been the subject of considerable controversy over the past year, as mounting scientific evidence that babies begin to feel pain at that stage of development has prompted state and federal legislators to introduce ‘pain-capable unborn child protection’ laws banning the procedure after 20 weeks.
Additionally, the shocking case of Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist convicted of murder for severing the spines of babies born alive after botched procedures at his filthy West Philadelphia clinic, highlighted the irony of laws that say it’s perfectly legal to decapitate fully-grown infants inside the womb, but move the exact same baby just a few inches and seconds, and it becomes a capital offense.
Around the same time Gosnell was convicted, Live Action released a series of undercover videos exposing late-term abortionists as equally willing to murder babies born alive after abortion. And the high profile death of a kindergarten teacher in Maryland after her botched late-term abortion raised public awareness even further, leading many to question why a woman would want to undergo such a risky procedure at all.
So what should women's responsibility, rightly assigned, look like?
I’m just kind of flabbergasted. This is the first time I’ve heard someone try to blame feminism on men.
History does not support your position.
Historically women who were pregnant outside of marriage (and also sometimes within marriage) did stand alone. They and their offspring where sanctioned heavily by society.
We have always had the social problem of children being abandoned by one or both parents.
Read up about baby farms in England. Orphanages were full of ‘bastards’ who were then very mistreated by society, even though the had no responsibility for the circumstances of their birth.
Throughout history right up until today it is the children who suffer from the decisions of their parents. And society finds a way to make that acceptable.
In past times children were abandoned and marked for life as ‘bastards’. They grew up in harsh conditions and many did not survive. Today, millions are just eliminated before birth or if born live in poverty with few prospects. But either way, it always comes down to one or both parents not taking responsibility, society not caring and children paying the price.
Legal abortion just masks the problem somewhat from public view. But it is still the same age-old problem of people not taking responsibility for their actions and children suffer as a result.
“Make women stand alone for whatever reproductive choice they make, and those legs will snap shut as reliably as they have throughout history. It’s simple, unequivocal, self-interest.
THAT is the ONLY way abortion can be stopped.”
Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Any woman who gets pregnant while unmarried, unless she was raped, should have no expectation of child support. It will not happen in this country, but it would solve the problem toot sweet.
Nonsense. I am not claiming a cure to out of wed lock pregnancies, but it is worse than deceitful to equate the current rate with historical rates, particularly in this country.
And frankly, I find your hiding behind children to add weight to your contentions, unconscionable.
A woman’s responsibility should be the same as the man’s responsibility. If two people co-create a child, BOTH are responsible for the child.
Jointly, BOTH can decide to give up the child for adoption. But if one parent decides to keep and raise the child, then the other parent has to contribute as well.
The whole focus should be on what is best for the CHILD, not how much responsibility one parent can foist off on the other parent.
Bickering about who is responsible for the child being created is beside the point and is only an exercise in trying to absolve one parent or the other from responsibility ... the only outcome of that is the child will bear the full consequences, not the adults.
After a child has been created, the parents have forfeited their unilateral decision making opportunities. Each adults’ personal decisions for themselves become secondary to the welfare of the child from there on out.
If society supported and enforced such a position we would never have had child abandonment in the past nor abortion today.
Huh? Children ARE the issue. They are the ONLY issue.
It’s not about what the adults want.
Look, it’s real simple. Here are the choices.
I want there to be:
1. Fewer abortions.
2. More abortions.
3. About the same number of abortions
4. I don’t care.
If your answer is No. 1 then your only option is to work toward that goal. Bickering about whether men or women are more responsible for a child being created in the first place doesn’t work toward choice No. 1.
If your answer is number 2,3, or 4, then yes, by all means, keep on focusing on the selfish wishes of adult men and women + assigning blame to one more than the other. This has certainly been a very entertaining for adults for the past millennia, but it hasn’t really been such a great deal for children or society as a whole.
No it wouldn’t solve the problem.
It only makes children pay for the selfishness of adults, same as it has ever been.
We’ve had children born out of wedlock for millennia.
This is not a new problem or one solely related to abortion.
You are arguing for the status quo as if that’s not what exists now.
It certainly isn’t a fix.
And responsibility is precisely the problem. It is the height of conceit to expect men to shoulder a responsibility women have awarded exclusively to themselves.
And why is there no father? Because Mama has no need for him. The government gives her more money than a McDonalds worker could, and doesn't complain that the house is dirty.
Take away welfare, make it hard to survive without a husband to help support the kids, and women will be more likely to not toss the father out when she gets annoyed with him.
The ghetto gangsta also becomes a less attractive bed-mate when the girl factors in his unreliability as a family provider.
If it were ONLY about children, there wouldn't be any abortion at all.
I can't force you to face the world of realpolitik, but I'm not about to join in your utopian fantasies.
You have tried every dodge available, but the one thing you will not do is countenance women taking sole responsibility for the exclusive prerogatives they exercise right now.
It would improve it. Or are you insisting abortion is acceptable in lieu of a perfect solution?
It only makes children pay for the selfishness of adults, same as it has ever been.
That doesn't happen anyway?
This USED to be the case, but starting in 1968, a series of Supreme Court cases invalidated treating illegitimate children differently from children born in marriage, and mandated that illegitimate children had the same right to child support.
Illegitimate births rose from that point.
...
After a child has been created, the parents have forfeited their unilateral decision making opportunities. Each adults’ personal decisions for themselves become secondary to the welfare of the child from there on out.
Giving the man a veto on putting the child up for adoption would likely get you lynched by feminists.
Here's an alternate proposal: the woman gets to specify a level of child support she feels is fair. The man gets to decide whether to pay the support, or take custody of the child and have the woman be legally liable for the child support.
Hear, hear!
No abortion is not acceptable. It makes the child pay for the abdication of responsibility of the adults who co-created him/her.
Any efforts to absolve one or both parents from responsibility for the child existing results in the child paying the price. Always has. Always will.
It’s been this way for millennia. This is not a new problem or one that is solely about abortion. One way or the other children have ALWAYS paid for the decision of one or both parents to absolve themselves of responsibility.
Children have the same right to be supported by both parents. There are no distinctions because from the point of view of the child, he/she is not the one responsible for existing.
Segregating children by something that is beyond their responsibility is how we get to the point of some children being deemed having a right to live and some not.
We’re back full circle to making the child pay the price for the one or both parents abdicating personal responsibility.
Apparently, that is still all that matters (that adults get the option to abdicate responsibility). This is exactly how we arrived at the culture of abortion in the first place.
Women are not solely responsible for children coming into existence. This is 50/50.
So the responsibility for said child should also be 50/50.
The fact that it has never been that way is how we arrived at the culture of abortion in the first place.
Abortion is merely a convenient method. It is not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the refusal of people to acknowledge the facts of procreation. It’s a 50/50 proposition and always has been.
Everything after that has been an exercise in assigning unequal responsibility (or no responsibility) to the adults involved. Abortion is a result of that age-old excercise, not the cause.
“The government gives her more money than a McDonalds worker could, and doesn’t complain that the house is dirty.
Take away welfare, make it hard to survive without a husband to help support the kids, and women will be more likely to not toss the father out when she gets annoyed with him.”
Like I said, Thank you Democrats!
“No it wouldn’t solve the problem.
It only makes children pay for the selfishness of adults, same as it has ever been.”
Wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would greatly alleviate it. The system we have now subsidized unmarried pregancies, and what happens when you subsidize something? You get more of it. Remove the financial incentive, and a large part of the problem goes away as women would naturally look out for their own interests.
Would some children pay? Yes, unfortunately. However, a lot more children will suffer being born into broken homes, and all that entails, if we fail to enact some sensible solution like this.
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