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Forty years after Roe v. Wade, abortion is still a national disgrace

Forty years after Roe v. Wade, abortion is still a national disgrace
Commentary by James Shott

An abortion-related event occurred last week, and if you were paying close attention to the news, you might have been aware of that. Hundreds of thousands of abortion opponents gathered in Washington, DC for the “March for Life,” protesting the grisly process that has terminated about 55 million future Americans in the womb since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

It wasn’t easy to find news accounts of this event. The Media Research Center reports, “the broadcast networks combined devoted a total of just 46 seconds to the March. ABC offered 24 seconds and NBC gave it 22 seconds, correctly noting the ‘huge turnout’ despite brutal weather conditions. CBS didn’t bother to cover it at all.”

This coverage totaled about 18 percent of the coverage the birth of a panda cub at National Zoo received a few days earlier. In the eyes of our dedicated network news people, one new panda is six times more important than 55 million aborted potential children, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who braved the cold to make their position known.

This helps confirm the long-held idea that we do not have a news media that furnishes the public with what it needs, but instead provides what it wants the public to know.

A fact sheet published by the Guttmacher Institute tells us that at least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45. Given that the cause of pregnancy is not a medical mystery, that is a shocking statistic.

Web4Health explains that sex without contraceptives carries an 85 percent likelihood of pregnancy, and if the most effective contraceptive methods are used properly, the chance of pregnancy drops to eight percent or less, but abstaining from sexual intercourse has a zero percent pregnancy rate, except for in vitro fertilization.

According to Guttmacher, fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76 percent of pill users and 49 percent of condom users report having used their method inconsistently. Forty-six percent of women who had abortions used no contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant.

Other factors contribute to unwanted pregnancy. Some men and women are uneducated about how to have responsible sex, and contraceptives can be expensive for some.

Abortion was, in fact, the solution for more than a million women who got pregnant unintentionally last year. But as long as abortions are an easy corrective for bad luck, carelessness or bad judgment, it seems unlikely that more responsible use of contraceptives will occur.

The problem with abortion is that at some point in the pregnancy the fetus will have developed enough to be justifiably considered a human being. That point may or may not be the same point as when the fetus can survive outside the womb, but whenever that point occurs and afterward, abortion is murder. The debate goes on over just when the fetus reaches that point.

It is commonly accepted that at 20 weeks the fetus can feel pain during an abortion, and at least one researcher believes that as early as eight weeks after conception the neural structures needed to detect certain stimuli are in place. As science progresses more and more becomes known about fetal development, pushing backward toward conception the point at which the fetus is a person.

Be that as it may, it is absolutely scandalous that in America in the 21st century so many women get pregnant who don’t want to, and that so many of them choose to abort the developing life inside them.

It ought to be a point of humiliation that the great majority of unwanted pregnancies result from carelessness or negligence in the use of contraceptives, or not using contraceptives at all.

A major provider of abortions is Planned Parenthood for America, and it receives more than $500 million each year in taxpayer funds to deliver “vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide,” according to its Website, “the key program [of which] provides essential health care to women, the Title X Family Planning Program.”

Planned Parenthood provided 360,000 abortions in 2013. Providing abortions to women who are pregnant and don’t want to be is not planning for parenthood.

There are couples all across this nation who cannot conceive a child and would gladly adopt an unwanted child given up for adoption. Perhaps Planned Parenthood could shift its focus from abortion to adoption, and nurture women through their unwanted pregnancy to an end that both honors life and helps those who want children, but can’t have their own.

How many great writers, scientists, artists, inventers, athletes, etc., have been summarily snuffed out before they got started?

A young pregnant wife was hospitalized for a simple attack of appendicitis and had ice applied tfso her stomach. Afterward, doctors suggested that she abort the child, because the baby would be born with disabilities. The young wife decided not to abort, and the child was born. That woman was the mother of Andrea Bocelli.

Cross-posted from Observations


The Low-Information Voter’s Guide to Politics

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle

by Oleg Atbashian

Are you typically lost when co-workers discuss current events around the water cooler? Do you have trouble figuring out the national debt or who that Ben Ghazi dude is, but you know what’s on Kim Kardashian’s grocery list?

If you think you only deserve fun answers to all life’s questions … you’re right! This primer will help you look smart and morally superior in any political discussion. Just memorize these big words, explained in easy terms you already know from TMZ and The Daily Show:

BIASED: If you have a weird friend who goes to church and her parents are still married, that’s what they are.

ELECTIONS: These are like the Teen Choice Awards: the coolest and most popular wins. Democrats always win because they are cool and popular. Republicans are more like your weird friend’s parents.

DEBT CEILING: This is like Lindsay Lohan’s probation: by law, she should go to jail if she gets arrested, but we all know she won’t.

PUBLIC EDUCATION. Think Memento. Remember how the guy in the movie learned to go through life and fight enemies by relying on snapshots, notes, and tattoos? Public education does that on a national level as a free service.

IM-MI-GRA-TION: Whew, that’s a long word — just like that velvet rope outside nightclubs. When really fun people arrive, you just open it right up.

QUAN-TI-TA-TIVE EASING: Remember Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, and how he printed his own checks? Well, that’s what the Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, does. It’s really cool.

TRILLION DOLLARS: This is a silly number. If someone says: “The U.S. national debt has topped 16 trillion,” take it easy. Remember how Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to fifteen life terms while having only one life?

Once you owe more than you can pay, numbers stop making sense. Anything above that is free money; spend it fast so you can get more.

ECONOMIC STIMULUS: It’s like Whitney Houston upping her dosage to get the same high, always needing to use more and more to “chase the dragon.”

SE-QUE-STRA-TION: This is just a made-up word that Republicans say to make you feel stupid.

FAIR SHARE: Someone you know has three Louis Vuitton handbags and you only have one. As many as you can get somebody else to steal from them and give to you — that is your fair share.

ENTITLEMENTS: This is like celebrities getting a $30,000 bag of goodies for showing up to the Oscars, so that the givers get more street cred and respect. And votes.

FOREIGN POLICY: Think Lady Gaga’s world tour: it’s totally awesome but can also get weird — like, she’s hot in places like Europe and Japan, but gets booed and canceled in places like Indonesia.

IRAN: Think Robert Downey Jr. — he may be calm at the moment, but if he gets his hands on the wrong stuff, he could trash his neighbor’s house and pass out naked on the lawn.

MUSLIMS: These are like the blue people from the movie Avatar — they live in a magic tree and don’t need human technology or any of our laws like gravitation, because they have a miraculous energy source inside their planet. Humans must respect that, and send them humanitarian aid. But instead, an evil corporation from Earth brings drilling equipment; that’s why all humans get killed.

ISRAEL: This is like the evil corporation from Avatar that landed on the blue people’s planet.

OIL: Think magic energy source on planet Pandora that humans want to steal. Get over it, humans!

OCCUPY WALL STREET: People in this movement are fighting greed by forcing Michael Douglas’ character in Wall Street to give more money to the 99% of people like us. We need to support their stand against corporations by friending them on Facebook™ and re-Tweeting them on Twitter™.

MEDIA: The good media are like paparazzi and E! Entertainment who keep it real by telling us all the truth about interesting people. The bad media are like bullies who make good people look bad. Nobody listens to them except for your friend’s weird parents.

HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINES: These do not contain expensive perfume samples that you can rip out while waiting at your hair salon. See GUN CONTROL.

GUN CONTROL: If Naomi Campbell had a gun, she would be shooting at her maids all the time. Without a gun she just beats them with a cell phone and then gives them compensation. Everyone is alive and happy. As long as the government keeps guns away from the citizens, Rihanna and Chris Brown will always be together.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Think Brad Pitt, dashing A-lister who can’t do anything wrong.

FIRST LADY: She is like Kim Kardashian, only with other people’s money.

VICE PRESIDENT: Think Steve Carell, a lovable nincompoop who likes to make others laugh.

WHITE HOUSE: This is like Cribs, a really fancy pad where celebrities hang out and party instead of working.

MIDDLE CLASS: These are like the extras in movies — kind of important but nobody cares who they really are.

CON-STI-TU-TION: It sounds almost like Cosmopolitan, except it’s really old and has no make-up ads or sexy pictures, but some people are really into it, like Antiques Roadshow.