You all know how I would vote. So lets see how many like me are out there.

It is certainly true that educated girls, girls who are more likely to feel that they are in control of own destinies are much more likely to take care of the business of birth control. They may well want to be wives and mothers, most women do, but they are aware that the world offers them more than only that. They are also aware that they can direct their own timetable as to when they will settle down, have a family.

I believe that all young people must be educated on the facts of human sexuality. Indeed, they must be educated repeatedly for this is a vast and complex topic and birth control is only one - admittedly a very important one - aspect of this. This Puritanical approach to sexuality, this notion that if we teach that abstinence until marriage is what God intends for us, and that by avoiding teaching birth control techniques we are avoiding aiding and abetting sinful behaviour is obviously not going to work. Teenagers are, physically speaking, primed to mate and in other times and other cultures they were married off when they were much younger than is the custom today. Those young couples did, however, live under the extended family roof and this is where they continued on with learning the necessary skills needed in order to survive and prosper.

I guess that one of my points is this: you cannot always fight human nature. Sometimes even the nicest church-fed kids will fool around. All individuals should learn about the facts of human sexuality and everyone should both know about and have access to birth control technology. This would certainly cut down on the number of unwanted pregnancies.

But there are other issues at play, I believe. There are a lot of what I will call "careless" pregnancies which take place among women who have come from the kind of limited and joyless backgrounds which leave these women feeling trapped within their own lives, fighting with a chronic low-grade depression, and filled with a sense of futility and self-disgust. These are individuals who are careless with themselves as a result.

I find myself, as always, believing that education is likely the single best solution to so many of our dysfunctional woes. Educated people tend to be less likely to perform violent crimes and educated women are much less likely to be careless about managing their sex lives and this biz of birth control. I really do believe that education plays a big part in the health of any country in oh so many ways, including a reduction in the dependency on abortion.

This being said, I will remind you all that I had always been quite focused on my desire to never, ever have a child and thus I had always made a point of taking care of my birth control business. Imagine my distress and, quite frankly, brute animal terror when I discovered myself pregnant while I was living in France in my early 30s. I felt like a wolf caught in a leg-hold trap and, yes, I believe that I would have risked a backstreet abortionist. Birth control does not always work, and where would I have been had I been without access to a safe and legal abortion?

Nevertheless, our current birth control techniques work well. We must also recognise that although we can choose to inculcate our children with certain notions of "good" sexual behaviour not all of them are going to be able to conform to what we have chosen to impose on them. This means that we have a choice: blindly insist upon chastity or simply suggest that abstinence is a better idea and at the same time give them all the requisite tools to avoid an unwanted pregnancy.

And as for women and for all young people, I do believe that one of the tricks is exposing them to education. Once people realise that the world is oh so much infinitely larger than pregnancy and brats/or collecting a bitch-load of baby-mommas while still in high school there will be many less unwanted pregnancies, many less abortions, and, arguably, many fewer individuals engaging in the business of babies=enriched welfare cheques.

Green, I had to reply back - I find you extremely rational & eloquent when discussing this topic....I too was in France & my birth control did NOT work. I was put on the pill at 14, as many woman are due to bad periods. My niece, not so fortunate...a product of NO education as my brother is a single parent working and raising 3 kids with very little help. She was embarrassed to discuss with him., but even more so when she had to tell him she was pregnant.

Green, I had to reply back - I find you extremely rational & eloquent when discussing this topic....I too was in France & my birth control did NOT work. I was put on the pill at 14, as many woman are due to bad periods. My niece, not so fortunate...a product of NO education as my brother is a single parent working and raising 3 kids with very little help. She was embarrassed to discuss with him., but even more so when she had to tell him she was pregnant.

Thanks for your feedback, luluc. I have been very interested in your own story and am awful happy that all will end well.

On a personal note you may or may not be interested in learning that my religious/cultural background was as follows: my father was a Polish Jew who had managed to survive the Pogroms and my mother was Anglican.

Neither of them were, however, particularly devout. In fact my dad was an atheist. As for me, I was sent off to live in an Anglo-Catholic boarding school when I was 10 years old. My first true exposure to religion happened at this point and I did pass through a period where I became quite devout. The truth is that I don't really have the knack for belief and my period of religiosity only lasted 9 months at most. It was more in the way of a fad. I now pride myself, however, that I was able to torment my parents during this time; it was, after all, my parents who chose to exile me to boarding school, eh. :heh:

I had my abortion in France in the early 1980s. It is possible that you, Luluc, may have had yours in or around the same period. I had mine done in a local hospital and the medical staff were efficient and non-judgemental. The medical staff were, by the way, all women. The only place where I received attititude was at a local pharmacy when I went there in order to cash in my pre-printed array of prescription drugs.

Now, as I have explained before on this thread, the French government does have a pro-birth policy and this was why I was presented with a booklet advising me of the generous array of governmental programmes which were in place for all women who are either pregnant or who have children who are below full-time school age. Any woman could freely opt for an abortion but once the appointment was made the chick was stuck with a mandatory cooling down period and she was sent away with That Booklet.

The information presented in the booklet was awfully interesting. Women would have the right to government paid pre and ante natal health care. The government would pay for their maternal leave from work for something in the realm of the first year of absence but should a woman opt to remain off work for a couple of additional years in order to care for her child, her company was legally obliged to protect her job for her return. Parents could place their children in government paid pre-school as soon as their kids were 2.5 years old and toilet trained.

Had I chosen to persist with my pregnancy that child would have been deemed a French citizen and would have been able to avail him or herself of an excellent health and education system. I, however, believed that I could not do this. I could not deal with pregnancy. I still have no regrets concerning my choice to abort.

But I do believe that a social system which incorporates attractive options for those of us who do find ourselves pregnant is a helluva lot more honest and a helluva lot more reliable than the other option, the bunch of Jebus-driven folk who are yelling and waving signs and promising some kind of luv.

So many of you get fussed about saving that foetus, it seems to me, but after the creature is successfully brought to birth? It is then that the little creature is tossed into the crapper.

It is likely that raising children takes a society or yer village but it is oh so important that women really are presented with an informed choice. This really is an option which is available in France but ya gotta pay a lot of taxes in order to have this.

Wow - I really enjoy reading others heritages / stories & how they've shapped the way we are today. I love knowing a little bit of back story, thanks for sharing yours. We've got some in common, I too am a product of dual faith parents. My mom is of German Jewish decent - but was never really one to practice her religion. My dad - Italian Catholic...mom had to convert to marry & that was how my brothers and I were raised. We all did the communion / confirmation classes - but were encouraged to seek other faiths if need be after what my parents classified "done our part of religious instruction/influence" ... you may now seek what suits you. None of us participate in the Catholic church any longer, all for different reasons - but a lot of similarities. My staunch republican parents have mellowed substantially when the real world came into our family framework: Divorce / Death / Homosexuality / Abortion / etc.. I now have Democratic parents, and I'm no longer the only one.. I am married to an ex "Assembly of God" member....and I'm rubbing off on him and his family too...ha

My abortion in France was in 1989, Paris. I was so young, so was he and well I let his family take care of everything for me. They wanted me gone I'm sure., so I was in a private hospital, all bills paid by them - as well as meds. 2wks later I could not get a hold of him * never would. Que Sera??

I mentioned in my first response to this thread that I've read it all. I finally responded when the throws of stats kept coming, without many real stories talked about. I appreciate this thread, it's done nothing more than reaffirm my decision back in '89 (wow that was a long time ago).

If a woman has decided that abortion is what she wants to do, she will do it.

This has been stated several times in various ways on this thread. I just read a fascinating biography of a local pastor in our area. If you want to read the whole thing, here's the link: The Beacon

But here's the excerpt that disproves your statement:

My parents were married because my Mom got pregnant her junior year in high school. In 1966, finding a doctor to do an abortion was not an easy task. After three days, and no success, they decided to get married.

Now I'm not saying that all women will choose the route that this pastor's mother chose, but I believe with certainty that making abortion illegal will most definitely decrease its incidence.

As an aside, this man definitely had a "less-than-perfect" childhood, being unwanted and all. He describes it in detail in his bio. But that didn't stop him from becoming a highly functioning, productive member of society. I know there are many on this board alone that had less-than-perfect childhoods (is there such a thing as a perfect childhood? I don't think so). But one's supposition of what an unplanned unborn baby may suffer in the future because of less-than-perfect family circumstances doesn't justify the killing of that baby to prevent his potentially unpleasant future.

Hi gadget, long time no speak!

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think that you are harking back to a day and attitudes that are long gone.

In the days when abortion was illegal women had few rights anyway and they were used to being dictated to. The brave few that sought an illegal abortion were mavericks in every sense of the word, they were flouting so many preconceptions that were held at the time that they had to be bl++dy desperate to take that course of action. Remember that the american government used to lobotomise people who didnt display attitudes that they felt were appropriate, including young women who got pregnant out of marriage. Imagine if they tried to do that today....

Flash forwards to today, women are no longer merely an extension of their husbands, and rightly or wrongly they are used to having control of their bodies and the freedom to determine what is the best course of action for them.

You cannot want a return to the bad old days of backstreet abortions, and believe me that is what will happen when the right to make that choice is so firmly entrenched now, you can quote as many statistics as you want about the risk of a termination at a clinic, but you know as well as I do that if they were performed on someones kitchen table those risks would increase 1000 fold.

If men could carry children I would have a lot more time for them when they wade into the abortion argument, but as many of them cant be bothered to make their child support payments for the children that were carried to term I find myself disinclined to listen.

What the government should be doing is trying to prevent these pregnancys from happening in the first place, a pill that didnt cause thrombosis and mood swing etc would be a good starting point!

On a final note I think that if a termination is perfomed then an IUD should be fitted at the same time to prevent further accidents, there shouldn't be a choice.The way that I look at it is that if you are that against having a child, then the most effective form of contraception being fitted should bring a sense of relief.

Nina x

Hi gadget, long time no speak!

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think that you are harking back to a day and attitudes that are long gone.

In the days when abortion was illegal women had few rights anyway and they were used to being dictated to. The brave few that sought an illegal abortion were mavericks in every sense of the word, they were flouting so many preconceptions that were held at the time that they had to be bl++dy desperate to take that course of action. Remember that the american government used to lobotomise people who didnt display attitudes that they felt were appropriate, including young women who got pregnant out of marriage. Imagine if they tried to do that today....

Flash forwards to today, women are no longer merely an extension of their husbands, and rightly or wrongly they are used to having control of their bodies and the freedom to determine what is the best course of action for them.

You cannot want a return to the bad old days of backstreet abortions, and believe me that is what will happen when the right to make that choice is so firmly entrenched now, you can quote as many statistics as you want about the risk of a termination at a clinic, but you know as well as I do that if they were performed on someones kitchen table those risks would increase 1000 fold.

If men could carry children I would have a lot more time for them when they wade into the abortion argument, but as many of them cant be bothered to make their child support payments for the children that were carried to term I find myself disinclined to listen.

What the government should be doing is trying to prevent these pregnancys from happening in the first place, a pill that didnt cause thrombosis and mood swing etc would be a good starting point!

On a final note I think that if a termination is perfomed then an IUD should be fitted at the same time to prevent further accidents, there shouldn't be a choice.The way that I look at it is that if you are that against having a child, then the most effective form of contraception being fitted should bring a sense of relief.

Nina x

I can't disagree with you more. For real, you want and IUD fitted for everyone that has terminated a pregnancy? "There shouldn't be a choice". That is beyond antiquated that I'm actually lost for words to counter your statement. For the same reason I believe in keeping this a personal medical intervention - I would never want a Dr to tell me he/she was going to outfit me for a birth control device, when the pill described by such Dr did NOT work. Let's set back the crisis of womans health back another 50yrs.

Not everyone uses abortion as a form of birth control - Sometimes, a woman relies on her DOCTOR to provide her the best form of protection. Maybe THEY should be held responsible when that method does not work...not the woman who has to bear that burden.

I understand what you are trying to say, but I think that you are harking back to a day and attitudes that are long gone.

I disagree. I have a very dear friend who had an abortion a few years ago (she still calls me to cry every anniversary of the abortion and every anniversary of her due date). She had an abortion because it was easy. If there hadn't been a clinic close to her offering them, she would have had her baby. I'm sure she's not alone.

On a final note I think that if a termination is perfomed then an IUD should be fitted at the same time to prevent further accidents, there shouldn't be a choice.The way that I look at it is that if you are that against having a child, then the most effective form of contraception being fitted should bring a sense of relief.

I disagree here, too. I would find that a gross intrusion of a woman's control over her reproductive organs. I firmly believe people should have the right to do what they want with their bodies so long as they are not harming another human being. That's why I draw the line at abortion, when another human being is involved. I am a big supporter of birth control, but not forced birth control.

I can't disagree with you more. For real, you want and IUD fitted for everyone that has terminated a pregnancy? "There shouldn't be a choice". That is beyond antiquated that I'm actually lost for words to counter your statement. For the same reason I believe in keeping this a personal medical intervention - I would never want a Dr to tell me he/she was going to outfit me for a birth control device, when the pill described by such Dr did NOT work. Let's set back the crisis of womans health back another 50yrs.

Not everyone uses abortion as a form of birth control - Sometimes, a woman relies on her DOCTOR to provide her the best form of protection. Maybe THEY should be held responsible when that method does not work...not the woman who has to bear that burden.

I actually dont know anyone who got pregnant after a contraceptive failure, I know plenty who did because they forgot to take the pill, or didnt bother to use a condom because 'what were the odds of it going wrong'. The percentage of people needing an abortion in the circumstances where the pill had failed them must be tiny, most people are getting one because they didnt use contraception properly - if at all. Why should abortion be allowed to be used as a form of contraception, and if it isnt being used for that, then if the pill/condom did fail you why would you object to the most reliable form of contraception being fitted?

It wouldn't be the Dr that prescribed your pill that was telling you to have it fitted it would be the surgeon who was having to terminate the pregnancy that would be fitting the coil.It is already offered in a lot of UK clinics to stop repeat abortions.The big difference with the coil is that you have to make a conscious decision to have it removed.

Do you know that one of the biggest problems that the pro-choicers are facing at the moment? The fact that fewer and fewer Dr's want to train in abortion techniques, as it is seen as dirty and frankly not very glamorous, added to which a lot of the trainee doctors have their own beliefs to juggle.Just as I believe that women should have the right to choice, I also believe that so should doctors. It does not help womens cases when if offered a form of contraception they refuse only to turn up at the same clinic 6 months later in the same position.

Why is that any different to Drs insisting that people give up smoking before an op and wont do the surgery unless you pass a blood test? If you refuse to take responsibility for part of your health in any way then ultimately you will suffer.

I disagree. I have a very dear friend who had an abortion a few years ago (she still calls me to cry every anniversary of the abortion and every anniversary of her due date). She had an abortion because it was easy. If there hadn't been a clinic close to her offering them, she would have had her baby. I'm sure she's not alone.

I disagree here, too. I would find that a gross intrusion of a woman's control over her reproductive organs. I firmly believe people should have the right to do what they want with their bodies so long as they are not harming another human being. That's why I draw the line at abortion, when another human being is involved. I am a big supporter of birth control, but not forced birth control.

I am sure that your friend may regret her abortion, but there are countless thousands of women that do not, no-one forced your friend to make that choice she made it on her own, we all do thing that we later regret. If she hadnt had the abortion she could well be ringing you crying because having the child tied her for life to a wife beating maniac, the important thing is that as an adult she made a choice, she just didnt like the consequences.

On the birth control issue, unfortunately as you are well aware women having control over their reproductive organs in actuality means that loads of women abdicate responsibilty and then cant deal with the consequences. It is no more an infringment of your rights than having to give up smoking to get an operation done. If as I said you are so against carrying a child to term why would you NOT want the most effective form of contraception fitted? You would actually choose to risk being in that situation again? Well if that is the case then you would veiw abortion as the ultimate form of birth control, accepting the risk and knowing that if you did screw up again someone else would sort it out.

Drs put all kinds of conditions in front of people who want operations done, because they are all too aware of just how dumb we can be. Look at the struggle some people have to get their doctors approve them for a lap band. We all need one because we eat too much, but that doesnt stop the docs from ordering pre-op diets, you may as well say that it is our right to eat as much as we want, it is but they will put conditions on what you have to agree to do if you want them to help you.

nina- I almost agree with you on the BC thing, but then gadget ladies arguments are so true too. maybe a condition like that would help girls from having multiple abortions. IUDs are expensive I would have gotten one when I first got married at 18, but I couldn't afford it. So I took regular BC and got pregnant at 19.

Was I pleased with that? NO way! I was so upset. Luckily, I was smart enough to save myself for my husband and together we were able to handle it. We loved that baby so much, 18 months later we were desperate to have another! Now we have two gorgeous girls.

Maybe having free IUDs would help cut down the abortion rate. Maybe having the girl go to a counseling session or two before she is able to kill the baby would help too. If I had been offered a free IUD I can tell you that I would not have any children today, I had no idea of the joys I was missing out on. I had no interest in kids at all. My husband of course wanted 5!

2 thoughts immediately--the first being an assault victim myself in 1997 and it has taken me roughly 10 years to deal effectively with it, hell no! I wouldn't have a baby from an assualt. Thankfully, I didn't get pregnant and have to make the tough choice but knowing the resentment and pure hatred I felt for a long time I would not push that unknowingly but very possibly on a innocent child.

Secondly, I taught school a year when they were in desperate need of teachers and I was fresh out of college. I worked in Special Education and there was a 14 year old mentally challenged 7th grader who was pregnant. She could not count change, tell time, and was basically on a 1st grade level and pregnant. Her parent's didn't believe in abortion so here she was 7th grade, virtually incompentent in the means of taking care of the child and having a baby. Long story short, the baby ended up getting neglected because she didn't understand anything about what it takes care of a newborn, the father abused her because he was prepared to take care of his special needs wife or the baby and the baby is now in foster care.

So for me, I'm pro-choice. You can't decide what's best for anyway. Sometimes the hardest decision is the best decision.

I support Pro-Choice before conception and Pro-Life after.

Ah I didnt realise that IUD's werent free in the USA, all forms of contraception are free in the UK. Do you have to pay for abortions too?

All of my kids are happy 'accidents', for myself I am totally pro-life it would never occur to me to be otherwise, as you can tell by the fact that I have 6 of the munchkins.

I am also passionate about women having the freedom to choose, but I must admit that women who refuse to take responsibility for contraception drive me insane.

I have friends who have had 3 or 4 abortions, and if I were their surgeon I would be telling them that if they walked through my door again to sling it.

Whatever the situation you will always get people who abuse the rights that were fought so hard for by others, all I was saying is that there is no harm in placing reasonable boundaries on those rights, in so far as helping to ensure that they dont get into the same situation again.

I was one of those women who was unable to use the IUD. This is because I suffered badly from terrible cramps during the first day and a half with my period. I also turned into a raving hysteric for a couple of days before the onset and all my men knew by my lunatic behaviour when I was due. Until I was 30 I was on the Pill but later on I shifted to using a diaphragm and spermicide. This was because I was and still am a smoker and the Pill was counter-indicated.

I would have liked to have have had my tubes tied but no doctor would do this for me because I was too young and had never had children! Actually, because of my dreadful problems with cramps, what I really wanted was to have the equipment removed altogether. After all I had no interest in using it except for recreation. It was only when a doctor pointed out that I might lose my ability to have orgasms that I dropped my request to be spayed.

I became unwillingly pregnant when I was 33, while using the diaphragm and spermicide method. I arranged to have an abortion ASAP.

Now, Gadget, I can easily understand that there are women who do bitterly regret their abortions and certainly it is these women who will seek a caring individual like yourself out in order to talk about their grief. It is unlikely that they would gravitate to someone like myself in order to talk about such things just as it would be unlikely that you would meet someone like me, a person who has no regrets, within the context of your daily life. It is the miracle of the internet which has brought all of us, folks who are so very different, together. Your friend's story is compelling but then so, arguably, is mine; however, in the final analysis the only thing these stories display is that different women have had different experiences with abortion, some of 'em positive and some of 'em negative.

Nina, re paying for IUDs, etc: Americans don't have government-sponsored health care. They pay for a lot of things which are covered under the British health care system. So do Canadians. While we do have national health care, it is less comprehensive than yours.