I grew up in the 1970's when women that I personally knew in High School dies from back alley abortions. If they must have an abortion, I do want it done legally and in a hospital.
However, I follow the ancient rule about abortions: When the baby starts to kick, then it is has become an individual and his/her life should be protected.
My own daughter is in this situation. Once that baby started to kick, abortion is no longer an option. If she dared to have an abortion, I would never speak to her again.
She agreed with me and wanted the baby.
Women...more than one? Bullogna! The so called back alley abortions happened in the 60's, Roe was 1973.
"Ancient": I'm glad you admit you base life and death choices upon the dark ages. So glad you've insulated your morals and ethics from scientifically enlightened postures likes ultrasounds and basic human fetal development.
So, if you're a blind mom of a 1-week old...and if she's never initiated a kick or touch w/ya, I guess she's fair game for the garbage heap: See no baby, hear no baby, feel no baby=is no baby, eh?
Nice arbitrary standards in place. I can imagine it now, you having a convo w/your 13 yr old grand(son/daughter) {baby mentioned by you}: "Yup, I told your Mom that once she felt you kick, you were worth loving. But up until then, well, Chip, I just wanted you to know that I subcribe to a theory of A.M.T. (arbitrary magical transformation). You see, you weren't really Chip until you were strong enough to kick so that your Mom could feel you."
As opposed to now when they can walk right up to an abortion clinic in broad daylight and die from an abortion.
More women die from botched abortions now than did then.
But then, for you to have known more than one woman dying from an abortion in a particular high school would be quite exceptional. Unbelievably exceptional.
Well bless your heart, Humble. That's easy for you to say, seeing as how you've already been born.
Cordially,
More on Illegal Abortion Myths By Dr. Frank Beckwith
Anyone who keeps up with the many pro-choice demonstrations in the United States cannot help but see on pro-choice placards and buttons a drawing of the infamous coat hanger. This symbol of the pro-choice movement represents the many women who were harmed or killed because they either performed illegal abortions on themselves (i.e., the surgery was performed with a "coat hanger") or went to unscrupulous physicians (or "back-alley butchers"). Hence, as the argument goes, if abortion is made illegal, then women will once again be harmed. Needless to say, this argument serves a powerful rhetorical purpose. Although the thought of finding a deceased young woman with a bloody coat hanger dangling between her legs is -- to say the least -- unpleasant, powerful and emotionally charged rhetoric does not a good argument make.
The chief reason this argument fails is because it commits the fallacy of begging the question. In fact, as we shall see, this fallacy seems to lurk behind a good percentage of the popular arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes what one is trying to prove. Another way of putting it is to say that the arguer is reasoning in a circle. For example, if one concludes that the Boston Celtics are the best team because no team is as good, one is not giving any reasons for this belief other than the conclusion one is trying to prove, since to claim that a team is the best team is exactly the same as saying that no team is as good.
The question-begging nature of the coat-hanger argument is not difficult to discern: only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. If the unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choice advocate has a legitimate concern, just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding appendicitis operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both appendicitis and illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people, the state should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some pro-choice advocates, who argue for their position in other ways, admit that the coat hanger/back-alley argument is fallacious. For example, pro-choice philosopher Mary Anne Warren clearly recognizes that her position on abortion cannot rest on this argument without it first being demonstrated that the unborn entity is not fully human. She writes that "the fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it..."
Although it is doubtful whether statistics can establish a particular moral position, it should be pointed out that there has been considerable debate over both the actual number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result of them prior to legalization. Prior to Roe, pro-choicers were fond of saying that nearly a million women every year obtained illegal abortions performed with rusty coat hangers in back-alleys that resulted in thousands of fatalities. Given the gravity of the issue at hand, it would go beyond the duty of kindness to call such claims an exaggeration, because several well-attested facts establish that the pro-choice movement was simply lying.
First, Dr. Bernard Nathanson -- who was one of the original leaders of the American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L. (National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become pro-life -- admits that he and others in the abortion rights movement intentionally fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as a result of illegal abortions.
How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the "morality" of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible.
Second, Dr. Nathanson's observation is borne out in the best official statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital,pointed out that there has been a steady decrease of abortion-related deaths since 1942. That year there were 1,231 deaths. Due to improved medical care and the use of penicillin, this number fell to 133 by 1968. The year before the first state-legalized abortion, 1966, there were about 120 abortion-related deaths.
This is not to minimize the undeniable fact that such deaths were significant losses to the families and loved ones of those who died. But one must be willing to admit the equally undeniable fact that if the unborn are fully human, these abortion-related maternal deaths pale in comparison to the 1.5 million preborn humans who die (on the average) every year. And even if we grant that there were more abortion-related deaths than the low number confirmed, there is no doubt that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths cited by the abortion rights movement is a gross exaggeration.
Third, it is simply false to claim that there were nearly a million illegal abortions per year prior to legalization. There is no reliable statistical support for this claim. In addition, a highly sophisticated recent study has concluded that "a reasonable estimate for the actual number of criminal abortions per year in the prelegalization era [prior to 1967] would be from a low of 39,000 (1950) to a high of 210,000 (1961) and a mean of 98,000 per year.
Fourth, it is misleading to say that pre-Roe illegal abortions were performed by "back-alley butchers" with rusty coat hangers. While president of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone pointed out in a 1960 American Journal of Health article that Dr. Kinsey showed in 1958 that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing. Dr. Calderone herself concluded that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians." It seems that the vast majority of the alleged "back-alley butchers" eventually became the "reproductive health providers" of our present day.
Dr. Frank Beckwith is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Culture, and Law, and W. Howard Hoffman Scholar at Trinity Graduate School, Trinity International University (Deerfield, IL), California Campus. He holds a Ph.D. from Fordham University. Prior to coming to Trinity, Professor Beckwith held full-time faculty appointments at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas(1989-96) and Whittier College (1996-97). His many books include Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights. His articles and reviews have been published in numerous journals including Journal of Social Philosophy, Public Affairs Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, Focus on Law Studies, Simon Greenleaf of Law and Religion, and the Canadian Philosophical Review.
One of the founders of NARAL gave an interview months ago stating that his statisticians were never able to find more than 200 botched back-alley abortions in a given year. Underwhelmed by their actual findings, the abortion industry inflated that number to 50,000 (per year!) and sold it to the American public without a shred of evidence.
The majority of these illegal abortions occurred in the 60's. By the 70's, abortion was already legal in a number of states. Roe v Wade came along in '73, making abortion legal everywhere by prohibiting states from criminalizing it.
So how many people, exactly, did you know who died from illegal abortions in the 70's? And why were they more willing to untrust unlicenced, black-market "doctors" with a risky, complicated surgical procedure rather than just crossing state lines and having it done legally?