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Racquelle -> RE: The Deviding Issue-Palin's veiw Abortion (9/9/2008 9:43:01 PM)
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Less than 1% of abortions occur after the 20th week of gestation. To me, debating third-trimester abortions is kind of like debating whether ducks should be allowed to drive drunk. It is a red herring that the anti-choice movement plants in the discussion so that we all get up at arms about something that seems pretty horrible to even the most callous person. It is something that is already exceedingly rare, and even more rarely is one performed for elective reasons. (Yet, denying or delaying access to safer, earlier procedures is cited as a factor in increasing the likelyhood of an elective late term procedure.)
There is a similar fallacy in the use of the term "partial-birth abortion". Excerpted from an NPR report "Where does the term "partial-birth" abortion come from? The term was first coined by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in 1995" It is not a medical term. It is a political term.
I have heard reference to "the abortion industry" in a similar vein. The "industry" is the medical community, and medical care providers perform procedures and engage in practices many of us would find distasteful if they were painted this way too. I hardly think of surgeons as being in the "amputation industry". No one wants to have to have an amputation, and no medical care provider wants to have to perform them, but they are necessary for many reasons, including willfully neglecting one's health and well-being. (Kind of the way not using birth control might be seen.)
While most people who would call themselves pro-life are almost entirely opposed to abortion with a few notable exceptions, almost no one is universally pro-abortion. What MOST Americans are is pragmatists, who may recall a time when safe abortions could always be had for enough money, who may recognize that abstinence is not practiced religiously by people who lack the desire or ability to love and care for a child, who may recognize that normal, average people are sometimes faced with an unfortunate situation, who may recognize that people are not always in control of their own sexuality, who may feel the hubris in suggesting that WE know what is the right or good or best choice for people we don't know...who may think and feel many things about actual abortions, but believe they should be safe, legal and accessible in some form. As a vehemently pro-choice person, I also believe it would be unlikely I could choose to have an abortion even if it WAS the best choice under the circumstance, so I have been incredibly diligent in practicing selective abstinence and effective contraception. Though you can find extremists who actually advocate abortion, like latent Eugenecists, Nazis, and others...they certainly do not represent the average pro-choice advocate, or the average American. But the extreme pro-life groups don't either - they just want you to think they do.
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