2, do you mean that abortion is the direct consequence of contraception itself, or the result of a societal acceptance of contraception? Neither is true. To say that some people choose abortion because they either didn’t use contraception or their contraception failed does not make it a “direct consequence.”
That reminded me of some work I did on the Birth Control and Catholic Church Board rebutting one of their logical fallacies. It seems to fit here nicely.
Fallacy as presented by the anonymous board "theologian." ABC use leads to more abortions.
• One must first ask the obvious question: namely, what are people using ABC doing needing abortions? If they are using ABC, they shouldn’t be getting pregnant (or not very often, at least).
Such a statement says much about the naiveté of the consulting theologian!! The only birth control methods that are completely effective are abstinence, castration and hysterectomy. All other birth control methods have a failure rate. Several items below support this basic fact.
6 in 10 US women having abortions experienced a contraceptive failure.Induced Abortion,” Facts in Brief (New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1996).
Writing in this week’s issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Dr. Trevor Stammers of London’s St. George’s Hospital Medical School noted that ”up to 80 percent of unintended pregnancies (in Britain) result from contraceptive failure. ... We have been thumping the tub of contraception education for years and the problem is getting worse.”
Although the condom industry claims a 98 percent effectiveness rate for condoms, the fine print has to admit that this rate is for laboratory tests, not for actual use by teenage humans. In fact, one prominent study of adult condom users found that “in the last month [of the study], 33% of consistent [condom] users were potentially exposed to risks of infection and pregnancy during condom use [due to condom failure].”7 And adults are considered to be more responsible users of condoms than are teenagers.
http://www.family.org/cforum/research/papers/a0015156.html
The assumption, here, is that abortion is a back up for ABC; statistical evidence to support this point is virtually impossible to find, however.
This is not an assumption. This is supportable fact.
... The majority of unintended pregnancies end in abortion
www.contraceptiononline.org/slides/slide01.cfm?tk=2 - 40k - Oct 2, 2003
Article 8 March 2001
Abortion is a fact of life
by Ann Furedi, Dr Ellie Lee
Part two of the spiked-paper ‘Defending abortion - in law and in practice’
These days, abortion has an accepted place in fertility regulation. It is a method of family planning, in the sense that women use abortion to control whether or when they have children.
Women may not intend to rely on abortion as a means of family planning, but in reality that is often the way it works out. Women today expect to have control over their fertility and are expected to control their fertility. The need for ‘family planning’ is almost universally accepted, even among the most conservative thinkers.
But the evidence shows that women cannot manage their fertility by means of contraception alone. Contraception fails, and couples sometimes fail to use it effectively (1). A recent survey of more than 2000 women requesting abortion at clinics run by BPAS, Britain’s largest specialist abortion provider, found that almost 60 percent claimed to have been using contraception at the time they became pregnant, and nearly 20 percent said they were on the pill. Other studies have shown similar results (2).
The number of women who claim they experienced a split or slipped condom, or missed just a couple of pills, is undoubtedly inflated. Unprotected sex is stigmatised and some women requesting abortion may falsely claim to have used contraception, believing that they will be treated more sympathetically if the pregnancy is ‘not their fault’. But even so, it is clear that contraceptives let couples down.
All methods of contraception have a recognised failure rate (3). Whether the pregnancy occurred because the condom split or because the couple failed to get it out of the packet is not very important. The simple truth is that the tens of thousands of women who seek abortion each year are not ignorant of contraception - most have tried to use it and, indeed, may have used it and become pregnant regardless.
Women’s need for abortion is implicitly understood by policymakers and legislators. This is why abortion is provided at NHS hospitals throughout the country. Most democratic societies hold that women should expect, and be expected, to make a broader contribution to society than bearing and caring for the next generation. Motherhood is still regarded as ‘natural’ at some time in a woman’s life, but most people assume that motherhood will be an interval sandwiched on both sides by an income-generating ‘job’ if not a ‘career’. Girls from appropriate (middle-class) backgrounds are expected to progress to a university education.
Society currently places a high premium on ‘planned parenthood’. The belief prevails that children should be wanted, that parents should be able to support them, and be willing to make sacrifices for them. Growing social concern about ‘unfit’ or ‘problem’ parents does not easily co-exist with a disposition to force people to bear children they do not want and by their own admission cannot care for. This ethos creates a framework whereby abortion can in some circumstances be perceived as a ‘responsible choice’ even by social conservatives who would disapprove of abortion in principle.
Surveys of public opinion suggest widespread tolerance of legal abortion. A national opinion poll carried out three years ago by the UK’s main polling agency MORI found that 64 percent of those asked agreed that: abortion should be legally available to all who want it. 25 percent disagreed. The remainder neither agreed nor disagreed or said they did not know. The proportion of those who agreed had increased by 10 percent since 1980 (4). Birth Control Trust, for whom the poll was commissioned, suggested that this demonstrated a growing acceptance of legal abortion and a widespread belief that the law should not be used to prevent women ending pregnancies.
Women today are at particular risk of unplanned pregnancy. Sex is an accepted part of an adult relationship for which we do not expect to suffer unwanted consequences. Pregnancy is seen by an increasing number of women as an unwanted consequence that they are not prepared to adapt to. The fact that more women are delaying starting a family until they are in their thirties, that many are deciding to opt out of parenthood altogether, suggests increased numbers of sexually active women who do not want a child. Is it any wonder then that the number of abortions remains high?
A relatively high abortion rate is not necessarily a sign of the failure of sex education and family planning programmes. It may be a symptom of a society where women wish to combine a sex life with ambition. Of course it is preferable for unwanted pregnancies to be prevented rather than ended. Abortion is safe, but contraception is safer and more convenient. Nevertheless, today abortion is an essential method of family planning and should be accepted it as such.
For further facts and stats about abortion, visit BPAS http://www.bpas.org
Ann Furedi is director of communications at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). Dr Ellie Lee is lecturer in sociology at the University of Southampton, UK, and co-ordinator of Pro-Choice Forum.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000054E1.htm
The new estimates more accurately depict contraceptive effectiveness because of the abortion adjustment. According to the study authors, “Contraceptive effectiveness rates derived from national surveys are usually underestimated, because a large proportion of unintended pregnancies resulting from contraceptive failure end in induced abortion and because abortion is typically underreported in surveys of women in the general population. This is clearly a problem with failure rates estimated solely from the [NSFG], the data set most commonly used for analyses of contraceptive use.”
http://www.contraceptiononline.org/contrareport/article01.cfm?art=76
Anonymous theologian: One must also inquire why it isn’t acknowledged that, for some, abortion could also be a back up for failed NFP.
That Catholics practicing NFP have abortions at or near rate near that of the general population or the rate of contracepting Catholics hasn’t been convincingly shown or even attempted, certainly not on this web site. This point is therefore a red herring
Anonymous theologian: Of course, one subtle assumption here seems to be that morally lax people use ABC and are therefore also inclined to have abortion while morally superior people use NFP and would never consider doing so.
Not necessarily. We live in a culture that considers contraception and abortion to be a “reproductive rights. It is not a huge assumption to make that people who have not been well catechized and who have not heard the condemnation of contraception from the pulpit, to assume that both are legal and thus both are acceptable and moral. In other words Catholics getting abortions aren’t necessarily morally lax, but rather morally ignorant.
Catholic women in the United States are as likely as women in the general population to have an abortion, and 29% more likely than Protestant women.
Survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of 9,985 abortion patients: Stanley Henshaw and Kathryn Kost, “Abortion Patients in 1994-95: Characteristics and Contraceptive Use,” Family Planning Perspectives, July/August 1996
64% of US Catholics disapprove of the statement that abortion is morally wrong in every case.
Survey of 493 Catholics, designed by Lake Research and Tarrance Group, for US News & World Report, Sept. 1995, margin of error ± 4.5%.
69% of US Catholics believe a woman who has an abortion for reasons other than to save her life still can be a good Catholic.
ABC/Washington Post poll of 1,530 adults, Sept. 1995, margin of error ± 3%.
It is common for Catholics to disagree with church teaching on abortion.
91% of Catholics in Poland approve of legal abortion to protect the woman’s health; 85% in cases of rape; and 58% in cases of poverty.
Ted Jelen and Clyde Wilcox, “Attitudes Toward Abortion in Poland and the United States,” Midwest Political Science Association meeting, Chicago, USA, Apr. 1993, citing data gathered by the National Opinion Research Center, Chicago, USA
Anonymous theologian: But most people who use ABC recognize the difference between preventing a conception and terminating a new human life. This subtle ad hominem fallacy needs to be noted.
I would need to see proof that “most” people see a moral differentiation between the two. You are making a generalization fallacy. The article above gives several examples of how contraception and abortion are seen as just different sides of the same coin.
Anonymous theologian: We note the same post hoc fallacy from #9 along with other causal fallacies. In short, it does not follow that ABC use leads to abortion, but it may be that the increase in both comes from other causes.
You have not proven that however. To prove that this is a coincidence you would have to show that the effect (widespread use of abortion) would have occurred anyway, even without the widespread use and acceptance of contraction and/or that the wide spread acceptance and use of abortion was caused by something else.
I have given substantial proof for my rebuttal in the articles and research above. In fact, this site has not given any substantial or compelling case that the two are divorced from each other. They are not. Your logic falls with your point.
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