I live and work in a state of Australia where abortion is illegal Not just the surgical abortion is illegal but http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/LEGISLTN/ACTS/1995/95AC037.pdf Also medical abortions Now our rates of abortion are similar to the USA where abortion is "legal" http://www.fpq.com.au/pdf/Abortion_statistics.pdf (sorry difficult to source completely accurate data) but this mirrors other research that supports the fact that legislation does not "stop" abortion http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1363/4318811/full IT does however increase significantly the maternal mortality rate
Question, how do they get such accurate numbers of illegal abortions? Do the mother get a back alley abortion, then promptly report that they have had an abortion to the department of illegal abortion statistics?
Australia is a bit unique - as are it's citizens State by state the laws vary from legal to very illegal but the Federal Government is the one that funds the procedure that is used for surgical abortion - it is also used for "removal of retained products of conception" following miscarriage. So, we have very good statistics for the procedure we know a proportion will actually be miscarriages not abortions but on the other hand the Federal government does not count those abortions performed in private hospitals that are self funded - and we know they occur They also do not count the "medical" abortions caused by RU486
I see. Just like the U.S. prior to Roe v Wade. The people of each state was allowed to decide for themselves. Still, I don't see how they know how many abortions there are if they are illegal and performed in secret.
PN, up until a few years ago abortion was technically illegal in Victoria, too. Women got around this by claiming that a pregnancy would be damaging to their physical or mental health, and the abortion was granted. Very easy to get around. The government knew this and finally decided that making it legal would do no harm. They vote and now abortion is legal, on demand, until 24 weeks. And the rate of abortions since it was legal to the time it has been illegal have not change. There are still the same amount of abortions performed each year, which further proves that banning abortions won't do anything to prevent it.
As Mak says - there is a sort of "blind eye" turned because of the "health" clause You cannot totally ban it because some abortions ARE necessary to preserve the life of the mother and how much health impact a woman should face is really between her and her doctor. Also since it is the SAME procedure for a partial miscarriage as abortion unless you do full forensics on every case who is to know which is the abortion and which is the D&C for partial miscarriage?
You can substitute literally any other action--criminal or not--for the first word "abortion" in the topic title and have the sentence still be just as illogical as the title of this topic. For instance: "Legislation stops infanticide - the myth" "Legislation stops murder - the myth" "Legislation stops hard drug users - the myth" "Legislation stops prostitution - the myth" This is a very invalid line of so-called "logic." Legislation isn't capable of preventing nor stopping any crime whatsoever. It never has been. What it does in the case of an illegal market, such as hard drugs, prostitution, and in the hypothetical--abortion, is limits the availability, provides a deterring factor for at least some would-be offenders, and enacts justice for when the legislation is blatantly violated. I've already discussed this in another thread. "We shouldn't legislate illegal abortion because that won't stop it" is not a logically sound argument.
Really? My 10 year old daughter can go to any American city and buy whatever illegal drugs she wants. The chances of her getting caught are near zero. Yet she cannot go to the 7-11 and buy a beer. The people who would sell her the drugs do not care that they may kill her. they care only about the money in her pocket. Make abortion illegal and you create the identical situation. The wealthy will still get their abortions just like they get their drugs. Except they won't be called abortions or morning after pills just like the drugs they get now aren't called what they are. Abortion should be regulated only for safety and effect. anything more is a clear violation of the 1st. 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments.
The origination of the law, not the effect of prohibition and enforcement, is the correct standard by which to judge if a law is right.
Hmmmmm.... just to speak to my own ignorance, I am surprised that abortion is illegal (anywhere) in Australia.
She cannot go to the 7-11 and buy a beer because it is illegal. Why are you not arguing that they should let 10 year old girls buy beer?
Anecdotal and irrelevant. Hearsay, even. I doubt your 10 year old daughter would know where to go or how to obtain it. I'll humor that "argument" nonetheless. It's fairly easy for underage people to get ahold of alcohol. They just wait outside a liquor store or gas station and approach adults about buying it for them. Maybe they throw in a couple dollars for the trouble. It's really not as difficult as you seem to be claiming. Perhaps for a 10 year old, it would be difficult, yeah, but a 10 year old doesn't fit the market demand profile for either hard drugs OR alcohol, so that little irrelevant hypothetical of yours doesn't work anyway. Again, this is still based on your hypothetical anecdote. And if anything is more irrelevant and illogical than an anecdotal argument, it's a hypothetical anecdotal argument. Is there a source for this "info?" Any kind of support whatsoever? No? If you're talking about the amendments to the United States Constitution, you're sorely mistaken. If you're not talking about a different Constitution, then I have no idea as to whether the ability to kill innocent human life as a result of a "mistaken" conception in order to drop all personal accountability for ones' actions is considered a Constitutional right. In the US, however, it is not. It is currently legal by the Supreme Court's ruling, but this could change at any time. Especially given that people who consider themselves to be pro-life have become the majority in the past few years in this country as opposed to the people who consider themselves pro-choice. Making abortion convenient for women is really not the government's concern. The government should, however, be willing to protect rights of the unborn, when they were conceived by irresponsible people who simply want an "easy out" so to speak for their "mistake." Sorry, but in the real world if you make a "mistake" like that, you are generally held accountable and deal with the consequences. If you're still desperate enough to pay some more money and go through with a different abortion procedure, whether buying miscarriage drugs, herbs which cause miscarriages, or actually approaching an illegal abortionist, then you would simply run the risk of dealing with an undercover officer--if it were illegal--and would be brought to justice via heavy fining, etc.
Sigh. I guess because it makes as much sense as arguing you have an IQ above freezing. Buying beer is LEGAL. Because it is LEGAL it can be regulated and the sale to under age customers effectively prohibited. Illegal drugs are ILLEGAL and because they are ILLEGAL they cannot be regulated and their sale to ANYONE, including little girls is not controlled.
I did not say "stand outside a 7-11 and purchase illegally from an adult." I said "GO TO A 7-11." The fact is that anyone selling alcohol without a license is selling drugs illegally. The model holds. Try again and this time, try paying attention.
It doesn't really matter what specifically you said, because in either case, your argument was irrelevant and fallacious. No it doesn't, because it's a worthless hypothetical anecdote. Anecdotal experience is neither relevant nor supportive, especially in an online debate. I could simply counter your so-called "model" saying "well my 10 year old daughter actually did walk into a 7-11 and successfully bought alcohol" and there's no way you can actually address the statement as true or false because there's no way for you to know. How about you try again and this time come to the table with an argument that isn't so weak and invalid.
Effectively prohibited? Underage Drinking Statistics as opposed to an illegal drug: So the current marijuana use rate is much lower than the percentage of underage persons who have even tried alcohol once in the past 30 days. As for how they obtained the alcohol: Yeah, well, consider your assertion incorrect, based on the above statistics. Marijuana is without a doubt the most used illegal substance in the US and according to those statistics, it doesn't really even come close to underage drinking in terms of minors using (which was the whole premise of you bringing your "10 year old daughter" model argument into the debate). So the concept you've brought forward which speculates that alcohol being legal allows for "regulation" and the "prohibiting of underage drinking" whereas "illegal drugs are used more often, specifically by younger users because they are not regulated" is entirely false.
The model holds. You can try to sling as much crap as you want the model holds. Make something the public demands illegal It causes the prices to go up Creates underground distribution channels Has downward impact on quality and safety Creates a criminal class where none existed before Creates almost no change in demand. The model holds for: Prohibition Prostitution Drugs Pornography And it held when abortion was illegal. making it legal made it safer, less expensive.
I'm not "slinging crap," I'm slamming your so-called "model" back where it belongs as being illogical and invalid, which it is. Anecdotal Evidence Bolded emphasis added. Your "model" can not be tested, it cannot be proven to be due to the stated cause, etc., therefore while you can continue to parrot that "it holds," it is neither logical, valid, nor even a very intelligent argument. Which are addressed via undercover police work. Which is irrelevant. Why should society care about the quality of drugs being used or abortions being performed--if they're illegal? The people using drugs and getting abortions--if they're illegal--are criminals. Criminals don't have the same rights as law-abiding citizens, we needn't worry about "quality control" for illicit substances, markets, etc. This line of "logic" reminds me of a news story out of New York in which the mayor spent a ton of tax money on fliers to be distributed showing how to shoot heroin properly. The faulty logic behind that was that "people will do it anyway, might as well help them stay safe." Spending tax dollars on fliers educating druggies on how to shoot up properly? Yeah, what an excellent investment. I'm sure New Yorkers were thrilled about that. And this is bad in what way? Criminals can be punished without necessarily spending lots of tax dollars on their incarceration. They could simply be fined heavily, in which case the budget would profit. What's new? People like their vices. Criminals will be criminals. They will want to commit crimes regardless of the law. People are still murdered every day, even though that's illegal. Should we decriminalize that too? The model is fallacious and irrelevant, because it can apply to literally any crime, whether violent or nonviolent, whether there's a victim or no victim. I've already addressed the fallacious nature of the model. Come up with something better.
What is relevent is what can be PROPERLY subject to prohibition. People like to ask "should we decriminalize that too?" as if the correctness of criminalizing certain things is a given. The challenge to folks like you should be "why criminalize in the first place?".
Please elaborate on what your opinion of being "properly subject to prohibition" is. That's a very subjective argument. Because it kills an innocent life, which we believe is wrong. Folks like yourself claim it's "not wrong" because it's "not a person," we claim that it is wrong and that it is a person--the problem of course being that "personhood" is not something which can be determined or defined by science or any other objective standard. However, when you side the two arguments up against one other: One argument stands for responsibility, personal accountability, recognition of causality (or cause and effect) and the preservation of innocent life (despite whether or not it's considered a person) The other argument stands for the exact opposite: irresponsibility, not being held personally accountable for your actions, absolute denial of causality and promoting a so-called "choice" which just leads inevitably to the legal systematic destruction of innocent life. Between those two arguments, the top has everything going for it, which is why it should be criminalized. It should not be legal to choose to contribute to the systematic destruction of innocent life while denying causality, refusing to be held accountable for one's actions and being completely irresponsible.
First, I did not give you an anecdote, I gave you a HYPOTHETICAL. I did not say "my daughter did this." I said "my daughter CAN DO THIS..." Try to understand the difference. Second, laws do not create behaviors, they criminalize existing behaviors. Finally, when a product or behavior the public demands is criminalized the results are always the same: 1. The price goes up 2. The quality goes down 3. The commodity or behavior becomes controlled by criminals. The model holds because the model has never been proven to be false, even with abortion. Prior to Roe v Wade abortion was: 1. Illegal 2. Expensive 3. Dangerous And just as in demand as it was after Roe V Wade. What has reduced the demand for abortions is education and birth control.
Personhood is defined by being born. How can an embryo be a person , with the rights given to people, if it occupies the body of a person? Two entities occupying the same body cannot have equal rights and that is the bottom line. Your post is just your opinion and it isn't one I share. I could never accept that women would be second class citizens ever again. The main difference between us is that ,me, living my life according to my conscience hurts nobody. I don't wish to force my opinions on other people. You are free to cherish your own embryo as much as you cherish your born children. Nobody has any intention of forcing you to do anything else. You are free not have an abortion if you are a 15 year old girl who became pregnant whilst drunk at a party. You are free not to have an abortion of the foetus you are carrying tests positive for Patau's Syndrome. You are free to choose. That's how I like it.
It was a hypothetical anecdote. It was both hypothetical and anecdotal in nature, therefore both terms apply. And even if it was not an anecdote, it would still be invalid to use in terms of supporting a position in debate. Your hypothetical anecdote has absolutely zero verifiability. There's no way to confirm it as fact or not. So it still deserves to be deemed as "worthless and irrelevant," which is what I already said. Please quote a post of mine in which I made the assertion that "laws create behaviors." Oh here we go again. Everyone, hold the presses! We've got another clairvoyant pro-choice advocate. What a surprise. So you can tell me for a fact that the results are always the same? Always? 100 percent of the time? If you wish for that assertion to be taken seriously, I hope you have some very detailed statistics to back it up. Actually come to think of it, you still can't back that absolute claim up, because you'd need every bit of criminal history ever recorded. In the future, my advice is to lighten up on absolute claims such as "always" or "never." They are not logical terms. You could say something like "the results are generally the same" and have your argument be taken seriously, but not "always." Even if this unsupported assertion is true, why is that a bad thing? The price of abortion goes up if it's criminalized. Why should society care? Offenders seeking abortions would be criminals, and criminals don't deserve a low price or a good market. Yet another case of "why should society care?" Again, I reference the New York news story with the informational fliers on how to shoot up properly. That was a big waste of money and New Yorkers were upset. Why? Because they don't care about whether or not some junkie using heroin is getting "good quality" stuff. The same would be for women seeking abortions. Yes, that's obvious, as the service, commodity or behavior is illegal. Therefore people claiming to offer it are one of usually three things: a scam-artist (criminal), someone actually offering the service or goods (criminal) or an undercover officer (trying to catch criminals). Again with the absolute terminology... The model doesn't prove anything though, it is no more a reason to legalize any other crime than to keep abortion legal. Another serious case of who cares? Yet again, why should society care if irresponsible people who deny causality, try to take an easy escape away from their so-called "mistake" and want to kill an innocent life in the process have to pay more to do so? Yes, as opposed to medically supervised birth. So people making selfish, irresponsible choices while killing innocent life endangered themselves instead of giving birth in a medical facility. Yet again, I'd like to see you provide a reason for why society should care. And this is still not reason for it to be legal. You've essentially summed up every good, commodity and service available on the underground economy, also known as the black market. You have successfully described what an illegal market is. I have seen no justification for abortion's continued legality amongst your description. Good, so let's continue doing that and criminalize abortion. It would be no different from any other illegal market, and you've provided no reason for why it should remain legal.
Sorry, but that's your definition. It's nothing short of ignorant narcissism to claim that your position's definition of such a subjective term is THE definition. Babies don't have the same rights as their adult caregivers, just like the unborn in the womb don't have the same rights as their adult mothers. But they can both be granted one of the same rights and that is the right to live and exist. That's funny, you use the "your post is just your opinion" line on me after declaring that your view of what equals a person is the objective definition and not subject to scrutiny. How droll. Of course it's my opinion. This whole debate is about two different opinions. My opinion just happens to be more humane and caring than the opinion of those on the pro-choice side. Just by giving the unborn the right to life? That's sad that you think that makes women "second class citizens." It really doesn't. The unborn growing inside her still wouldn't necessarily have the same rights as her, it would only have one of the same--the right to exist. That hardly makes women "second class citizens." That's a load of crap. Yet you debate on a political forum. That's kind of what debating on a political forum is, attempting to force or coerce other people to believe what you believe by making strong arguments. So that whole "I don't wish to force my opinions on other people" is just a method of denial, which is one thing that many pro-choice advocates have in common. They deny a lot of things, they deny that the unborn should have the right to exist, they deny the causality of sexual interaction (especially unprotected sexual interaction) and they deny forcing their opinions on other people, when they are attempting to do just that. In this very same post I'm responding to now, you told me that your definition of "personhood" is correct, which essentially tells me that if I have another opinion (ie considering my embryo a person), it's "wrong." So yeah, you actually were forcing your beliefs and subjective definitions on me. Yes, but you should not be free to have an abortion if you got drunk and had a lot of sex. Because you chose to get drunk and by choosing to get drunk, your cognitive abilities became skewed. As a result, you chose to have wild sex (maybe it was unprotected, even). And now you think you should have the right to undo that "mistake" even though it was the pure cause and effect result of your own irresponsible choices? How droll, this pretty much proves my point about the pro-choice movement and not holding anyone accountable. What you're saying essentially is that you are free to play God with an innocent life because you don't personally believe that it meets certain standards of "humanity," or "normality," etc. How disgusting. It's fine that you like it that way, but your position is hardly justified and society no longer agrees with your position like it used to. In the past few years, society has become increasingly pro-life. Roe V. Wade could be overturned at anytime. You might just want to prepare for disappointment.
And abortion Why? Because all of those crimes are easily hidden - as is abortion. One of the greatest problems with abortion is "How the hell are you ever going to police it?"
