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Want to curb abortion? Keep it safe and legal
By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published October 20, 2007
If abortion became illegal tomorrow, it wouldn't become less prevalent, just less safe. That is the conclusion of a comprehensive global study comparing abortion rates in countries where the procedure is legal to those in places where it is outlawed.
The study, a collaboration between the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute in New York, found that when women around the world experience an unwanted pregnancy, they will seek out abortion services at about the same rates, regardless of the law. The only difference is that those who obtain illegal abortions are far more likely to die from complications.
The statistics indicate that the places in the world where abortion is legal and where contraceptives are easily available are also the places with the fewest abortions relative to population. For example, in Uganda, where abortion is illegal and abstinence is the exclusive focus of sex education programs, the abortion rate is approximately 54 per 1,000 women. Compare that to Western Europe, where abortion is legal and contraception is widely available. There the abortion rate is the lowest in the world at 12 per 1,000 women.
If antiabortion activists really want to sharply reduce the rate of abortions worldwide, this study provides a road map: Keep abortion safe and legal and ramp up education on contraception and its wide distribution.
Every year, 67,000 women die from complications from abortions, primarily in countries that outlaw the procedure. When South Africa legalized abortion in 1996, the result was a 90 percent reduction in abortion-related mortality among pregnant women.
The Bush administration's abstinence-only sex eduction policies and hostility toward legal abortion and condom distribution programs overseas are precisely the wrong way to create a world where abortion is safe and rare.
[Last modified October 19, 2007, 23:13:31]
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by Michelle
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10/21/07 10:16 AM
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I agree-let's also legalize murder because people are going to do it anyway. Let's provide professional hit men so the murder can be done as painlessly as possible for all. BTW, I'm sick of Guttmacher being portrayed as impartial-they're part of PP.
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by tom
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10/20/07 03:55 PM
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Every pro lifer must be forced to raise a cast-off unwanted unreachable thankless destructive dangerous kid until it is old enough to enter the prison system. And then forced, by law, to take on another. The same law these power-starved idealists see
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by A. J.
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10/20/07 01:09 PM
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I see no anti-abortion comments are allowed here. How did these women come to need an abortion?
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by Pete
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10/20/07 12:07 PM
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So, education about how babies are made DOES reduce the abortion rate, go figure.
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by Susan
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10/20/07 11:34 AM
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Bravo!! The truth at last! I am still amazed that men think they have the right to tell women what to do w/ their bodies. I feel that if they suceed, then we should be able to tell men what and what not they can do with thier bodies!!
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by joe
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10/20/07 10:01 AM
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How about a little super glue, applied in large amounts to the inside of the knees. Press the knees together for about ten minutes. Wow, fewer and fewer abortions would be needed!!!
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by A. J.
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10/20/07 09:50 AM
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Why do these women need abortions? And how did they become pregnant? How are they going to avoid disease? Who is going to pay for their promiscuity? These 'activists' should find a cause where some good will result.
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