Ezra Klein correctly channels T.R. Reid.
“To oppose expanded coverage in the name of restricting abortion gets things exactly backward,” writes T.R. Reid. “It’s like saying you won’t fix the broken furnace in a schoolhouse because you’re against pneumonia.” Here’s his argument:
In a nutshell Reid says part A would be…
In Britain, only 8 percent of the population is Catholic (compared with 25 percent in the United States). Abortion there is legal. Abortion is free. And yet British women have fewer abortions than Americans do. I asked Cardinal Hume why that is.
The cardinal said that there were several reasons but that one important explanation was Britain’s universal health-care system. “If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it’s needed,” Hume explained, “she’s more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn’t it obvious?”
A legitimately life-affirmative position that, for instance, the Nebraska Right to Life PAC appears to also endorse. (If one was actually “pro-life” as opposed to merely anti-sex or anti-women’s-autonomy, supporting women who choose to keep an unplanned pregnancy… as opposed to, say, relishing pregnancy in particular and children in general as women’s ordained punishment for “original sin.”)
Reid’s Part B goes like this
A young woman I knew in Britain added another explanation. “If you’re [sexually] active,” she said, “the way to avoid abortion is to avoid pregnancy. Most of us do that with an IUD or a diaphragm. It means going to the doctor. But that’s easy here, because anybody can go to the doctor free.”
Another excellent point, obviously.
If one really wanted to reduce abortion, as opposed to, say, using the threat of pregnancy to hammer women into submission, one would enthusiastically embrace both parts A and B, and one would tend to view extending coverage to the most economically vulnerable population as an excellent step in the right direction. If one actually didn’t give a flying fig about abortion except as a way to enforce, say, Rule of Desire #1 you’d expect them to oppose healthcare reform.
Excellent point. :) I think
Submitted by Shadow (not verified) on Tue, 2010-03-16 16:32.Excellent point. :) I think most Europeans could tell you that though. We are quite happy and feeling safe, because of knowing we got healthcare to pick us up if necessary. But mostly women just use birthcontrol(like p-pills) and/or condom. That is after all the most effective way of avoiding unwanted pregnacies and abortions.
Strictly speaking, abortion
Submitted by SnowdropExplodes (not verified) on Tue, 2010-03-16 19:05.Strictly speaking, abortion is only legal in the UK up until 24 weeks of pregnancy – and there was a recent attempt (it failed in Parliament, I unremember the details of that failure – there seemed to be a lot of MPs that supported it, so it may have been struck down in the Lords instead) to lower that to 20 weeks. But the idea of abortion being available on the NHS does seem to be widely accepted, so that anti-abortion campaigners rarely try to get the law changed to stop it being available at all.
There’s a third reason that
Submitted by Reader (not verified) on Wed, 2010-03-17 13:39.There’s a third reason that follows from A and B: when you do get a prescription for birth control of any sort, no one fights you over it. It’s illegal to put your comfort level before someone’s needs, especially in medicine.