I think the "contraception causes abortions" argument relies on assuming that without contraception people will avoid sex in order to avoid pregnancy and thus avoid abortions or unwanted children. But I don't think that's true; historically women without access to reliable contraception or abortion have killed or abandoned unwanted infants, the existence of unwanted children (presumably resulting from unwanted pregnancies, although also plausibly resulting from the child being 'wrong' in some way, female for instance) isn't a new one.
If we were to accept that the "contraceptive mentality" causes abortions I think I'd expect people using NFP (as a contraceptive method) to get abortions when it fails, and also people practising abstinence to get abortions when it fails (that is, they fail to abstain) because those methods are equally about "I don't want a baby right now". Difficult to study as many people who are using these methods are also very often anti-abortion though.
On the other hand I do think we have a problem with our social views about "who should get pregnant and when". As a society we have the notion that because contraception and abortion exist that women *should* use them to control when they get pregnant, and I think that whilst women who *want* to use them should be able to that women who *don't* (and as a result have large families, or start having children young) shouldn't be socially stigmatised.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-12 11:35 am (UTC)If we were to accept that the "contraceptive mentality" causes abortions I think I'd expect people using NFP (as a contraceptive method) to get abortions when it fails, and also people practising abstinence to get abortions when it fails (that is, they fail to abstain) because those methods are equally about "I don't want a baby right now". Difficult to study as many people who are using these methods are also very often anti-abortion though.
On the other hand I do think we have a problem with our social views about "who should get pregnant and when". As a society we have the notion that because contraception and abortion exist that women *should* use them to control when they get pregnant, and I think that whilst women who *want* to use them should be able to that women who *don't* (and as a result have large families, or start having children young) shouldn't be socially stigmatised.