Replies

Once more I fused several of your posts. Please, don't chop it up again.

I am a woman. (Are you?)

No, I am not.

If abortion were not legal, many women who do not wish to be pregnant would take steps to avoid becoming pregnant in the first place

I agree. However, unless you are thinking in terms of downright abstinence (quite unrealistic these days), as I already pointed out, all birth control methods are riskier than using barrier methods and have an abortion if it fails. Thus, even if you are right (as I believe that you ARE right) about the less pregnancies, if abortion would not be available, using the various available birth control methods would still result a higher complication rate of those of the various birth control methods.

The average Jane Doe is more likely to become pregnant precisely because abortion on demand is legal.

I agree. Still the same item as above.

Obstetricians who have multiple death cases, won't practice very long.

Small solace to the (individual) grieving families.

Perhaps, but this doesn't belong to the heart of our discussion.

Might some women and teenage girls, who have this thought in the back of their mind, "If I get pregnant, I can always have an abortion,"

fit into your category of "putting too much trust in modern medicine"?

For example, teen age girls who consider abortion an option, might more carelessly get pregnant, then decide to bear the baby, then die from failure to seek medical care.

You repeating the exact same concept over several posts. The answer is still yes, you are right, but that's not the point.I am not debating (one way or another) the ethical and moral issues related to abortion. I am discussing nothing more than the strict medical aspect. In which abortion seems to be the lowest of all medical risks involved. It is not an opinion of mine, this is based strictly on statistics, numbers, facts. As a gynecologist, I don't perform abortions, so I am not even in the position of having to justify my own such activity.

My husband just pointed out that he thinks men would take more responsibility for birth control, if they knew abortion was not an easy "fix" for their "problem."

That's another reason why there would be fewer annual pregnancies, in the first place, if abortions-on-demand were not so easy to obtain.

Your husband is right. You are right too. I am not debating any of that for a moment, but unless you can achieve total abstinence in the case of "all involved", the medical risk would go higher, whether it is ordinary pregnancy, or any of the known methods of birth control.
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And as for the pro-choice pro-life debate: both side took an unreasonable approach. The pro-choicers insist on the unquestionably horrible third (even the second) trimester abortions, pro-lifers on the other hand oppose ordinary birth control and keep repeating the today irrational mantra of "abstinence" as a "solution" to the problem. I am unable to support either side, based on their current stand. I CHOSE not to perform abortions for totally non-religious reasons, but nobody will be able to convince me, that abortion is unreasonable in a case, where the fetus is a totaly genetic screwup, having zero chance to survive after a full term birth. Yet, pro-lifers insist that even those cases shouldn't be aborted, and that is crazy. Nor can I identify with extreme cases-no abortion. For example, in 1985 a 12 years old girl was brought in by her father, near term pregnant. They admitted that daddy of the 12 years old girl was also the daddy of the baby to be born. Now, in this case abortion was of course too late, she had the baby two days later, but had this case been found out at 8 weeks gestation, according to the pro-lifers, this 12 years old girl should not have had an abortion. According to the pro-choicers, the very same 12 years old girl could have had a late term abortion one day before the obstetric delivery. That's crazy too.

Until both sides able to achieve some compromise, I can't support either side. I just do what I think is right, I don't perform abortions, but I gladly insert IUDs, despite that they knock out a ready to implant zygote. Please, don't even bother to tell me that "with that you do provide abortions".

Gabor

I CHOSE not to perform abortions for totally non-religious reasons

You are in good company.

It's ludicrous of folks to insist religion plays such a large role in stirring up opposition to abortion.

It's especially ludicrous for religious pro-aborts to say this. After all, religious pro-aborts are religious and, yet, support abortion. If their religion doesn't make them oppose abortion, why should religion be making others oppose abortion..

Plenty of religious people think abortion is fine. In the majority of churches you will find people who support liberalized abortion laws as well as people who oppose liberalized abortion laws.

When you think about it, religion most likely is not the real reason that so many people oppose abortion

Something beyond "religion" is obviously at play in the way people make up their minds about abortion.