Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Honestly, how does "abortion as birth control" even make sense?

A common wingnut objection to abortion is that these women--filthy whores, every one--use abortion as a form of contraception. Because abortions are so much easier to get than condoms, you know? The logic is flawless.

But it's still wrong:
More than half of Australian women who unexpectedly get pregnant are either on the pill or using condoms at the time, a survey has found.

The report into unplanned pregnancy by sexual health organisation Marie Stopes International shows that 43 per cent of women were on the oral contraceptive pill when it occurred.

A further 22 per cent were using a condom and 21 per cent of the women using contraception were on more than one method.

...

And one third of women who were not using contraception at the time of their unplanned pregnancy had not been planning or expecting to have sex.

Well, yes. People like sex and have sex, and they cannot always set down every act of coitus on their calendar in advance. There is such a thing as spontaneity, and this is not a bad thing, nor should they be punished for it by forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

More than that, though, this survey strikes down the notion that women who get abortions use it as a form of birth control. In addition to spontaneity, accidents also happen in real life. Even if you do prepare for every sex act you ever engage in your entire life, birth control sometimes fails. And in that case, again, women shouldn't be forced to give birth to a baby because a condom breaks.

As the article ends:
The World Health Organisation states that even if couples use contraception correctly 100 per cent of the time, there would be six million unplanned pregnancies each year.

Cait Calcutt, coordinator of Queensland-based unplanned pregnancy counselling service, said the research showed women were not using abortion as a form of contraception, as many people believed.

"When unplanned pregnancy does occur it is vital that women have access to the support necessary for them to make a real choice - everything from paid maternity leave to safe and legal abortion services," Ms Calcutt said.

At least in Australia. I suppose it's still potentially feasible that women in America use abortion as birth control, except that's an incredibly stupid idea.

2 comments:

KEHutchinson said...

American women don't use abortion as birth control. However, with the Religious Wrong trying to squash access to birth control, some women might be forced to. Recently some laws were passed that made formerly free or very low cost birth control pills at clinics and college health centers no longer available.

I think what's stupid about the wingnuts is that they seriously believe that keeping women from being able to use birth control will help keep the abortion rate down. As if people would stop having sex if condoms suddenly disappeared.

Skemono said...

I think what's stupid about the wingnuts is that they seriously believe that keeping women from being able to use birth control will help keep the abortion rate down.
That is very stupid... but I've not actually heard anything like that. I know many of them are against both abortion and birth control, but I've never heard anyone say that banning the latter will reduce the former.