If proof were needed that there is something seriously wrong with both our moral values and sex education system, it comes with the new that of the 195,000 abortions performed in this country last year, more than one third were repeats.
And even worse, more than 5,000 teenagers had repeat abortions - some for the third or fourth time.
Surely even the most ardent pro-choice campaigner must be just as horrified by these statistics as those on the opposite side of the fence.
Somewhere at some time
ReplyDeleteThey committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother —my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked, defenseless
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste
bucket.
There was no Queens Counsel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled.
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With tickets to see Danny la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was.
Spike.
This has absolutely no relevance to the rights or wrongs of abortion, Iain. Rather it demonstartes the need for even greater eductaion about the use of contraception.
ReplyDeleteSorry Ian, off topic here but can you
ReplyDeletecomment on this angle of Climategate:
'Follow the Money'
"Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.
Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?
Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting$400 million - $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal."
http://itsfaircomment-climategate.blogspot.com/2009/12/follow-money.html
These stats emphasise that a select few treat abortions as a form of contraception - which is nothing short of deeply disturbing.
ReplyDeleteActually, I'm both on the right and pro choice and the numbers don't bother me in the slightest. Am I alone among Iain's readers in feeling this way?
ReplyDeleteAnd your Golden Age was when? The Unbroken Society existed when? The Foundling Hospital in London was in existence till 1954. In its existence it processed 27,000 abandoned children. I presume you're aware of the heartbreaking stories of the illegitimate and abandoned children shipped out to a life of misery in Australia?
ReplyDeleteDo you think those of pre-pill days who had illegitimate children stopped at one?
Yes, there is an issue with abortions. But please don't go on repeating the ludicrous myth of the "Broken Society". Just read your Dickens. And then go and look up the histories of The Foundling Hospital, Dr Barnardo's and the other children's societies in the 20th century.
Is abortion now seen as the most convenient form of birth control by some females? Some would argue that changing ones body chemistry for decades is not a good form of contraception also. Maybe if we are unhappy with the present situation, the morning after pill should be more freely available.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness, as a male, I have never had to make such choices. Maybe we should try to avoid making judgements.
How many potential Marie Curies or Einsteins in that 195,000.. We have created our own holocaust, we defend deaths victory over the innocent,
ReplyDeleteThe truth is, if you have more than 1 abortion, the risk of becoming unable to have a baby in the future increases, so a lot of these girls in future won't be able to breed, is that a good or a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteThey call it Ashermans syndrome.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteFirst let me say I think abortion is awful, and a sin. I also think any effort at criminialistion are doomed to fail.
The absolute number of 195,000 is outrageous, but in fact even if you dropped 100,000 from the figure you give, it would still seem just as bad. (You could write exactly the same article if the figure was 95,000)
The UK had 708,711 live births last year (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=369), so about 2/7ths of viable pregnancies are terminated.
This is a lower rather than some countries (even those with a very strong anti-abortion movement), but about 100% higher that the Netherlands or Germany
There just seems to be no easy way to measure all the policy factors involved in the figures. Some variation between countries may even fall with standard deviations.
As that seems the case, better sex education seems to be the ONLY way this moral disaster can be diverted even slightly.
REFS;
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1705604,00.html
http://www.netherlandsembassy.hu/en/files/9538905590.pdf
Any numbers are bad
Presumably it's a bit like great white sharks or serial killers. You do it once and get a taste for it.
ReplyDeleteAnd relate those figures to the social status of the pregnant women.
ReplyDelete'Sex education system'? I really don't think so. 'Education' in the UK has been a disastrous failure for the past decade. We will live with the consequences for generations.
It starts with the parents to educate their children properly about the need for contraception. All those scrubbers out there who are perfectly happy for their children to turn out like them :(
ReplyDeleteIt should be illegal to have intercourse under the age of sixteen - oh it is ! Bet they don't teach that in schools.
ReplyDeleteAt my school we were shown a foetus in a bottle - it still haunts me to this day - but it was a necessary shock.
"Surely even the most ardent pro-choice campaigner must be just as horrified by these statistics as those on the opposite side of the fence."
ReplyDeleteWhy would they be? Either abortion is morally permissable or it is not. Why would it be more acceptable to have 12 abortions a year rather than nearly 200,000? Either the foetus is a human being and should be protected (the pro-life view) or it is simply a collection of cells lacking sentience which is entirely subject to a 'woman's right to choose' how to control her own body (the pro-choice view). The idea of there being a middle ground or 'moderate' position open to compromise on this issue is absolutely preposterous.
That you find this figure of 195,000 abortions per annum disturbing suggests you find abortion to be, at least to some extent, inherently immoral. If that is the case the only logically consistent position for you to hold is one that is 100% anti-abortion in all cases. The caveats usually given by hardline pro-lifers that abortion should be illegal in all cases except those involving rape and/or incest are quite inconsistent and should, if anything, be immoral from their own point of view. It makes no sense to argue that abortion should be illegal as the foetus is a human being BUT it's quite alright to kill it if it happened to be conceived in a certain manner. Is our humanity dependant upon the sins of our fathers? It really is a ridiculously inconsistent position.
There really are fewer positions more shamelessly illogical and hypocritical than the "i'm not comfortable with abortion but i support a woman's right to choose" stance taken by so many politicians. Either you support abortion as an issue with no moral connotations beyond women's rights or you must be entirely against it. There is no morally consistent middle ground.
"We need more education" seems to be the pat answer to everything now ... Domestic abuse? - Education. Abortion as contraception? - education. Impossible levels of personal debt? - education. Drinking ourselves to oblivion every weekend? - education.
ReplyDeleteSex & Relationship 'Education' [a.k.a. indoctrination] is NOT the answer. It has been proven over & over again to make matters worse. Education cannot instil self-esteem, self-worth, self-control. Sexual activity has very little to do with knowledge and everything to do with values.
The biggest single factor in sexual behaviour is the home - girls raised without a father at home are 5 times more likely to become sexually active sooner.
Before we can 'educate' we need to fix in the infrastructure - the family.
As for the much misunderstood Dutch Utopia - could their much lower teenage pregnancy rate be more to do with the fact that divorce is also a fraction of what it is in the UK and the fact that there is no social security benefits for teenage mothers?
Your post is ambiguous and, not knowing your stance on abortion, I don't know what your point is. You could mean that
ReplyDeletea) Abortions are, at best, a necessary evil and that there are so many of them is problematic morally. That people rely on them as contraception is wrong.
b) It's a concern that so many women have to resort to what I can only imagine to be a deeply upsetting procedure, one that carries a risk of leaving the woman infertile.
How can an abortion be repeated?
ReplyDeleteIt's a different embryo every time.
Women may have more than one abortion but calling it a "repeat" suggests that the embryo isn't the central point of the abortion.
Personally I think it's none of your business and your post seems like a pointless attack on quite vulnerable women.
I do feel this site is increasingly going the way of Portillo's SAS speech, desperately pandering theatrically to the minority concerns of extreme right wingers. Considering your outrage at Hardcastle, you now seem to be writing your own Daley Mail.
The Palin Brigade you're sucking up to will simply viciously turn on you anyway because of your own "repeat" homosexuality.
Repeats? You'd have hoped it would be successful first-time round!
ReplyDeleteI ama WOMAN!! And I know how easy it is to make mistakes despite education.. most methods of contraception are unpleasant for a woman to use.
ReplyDeleteAbortion is the main form of contraception in the FSU. Gordo is just keeping the faith ...
ReplyDeleteUnborn children: the most vulnerable, the most in need of protection.
ReplyDeletePregnant mothers: those who have the highest duty of care towards their own hdefenceless children.
Abortion: the worst kind of betrayal, a horrific crime.
"It demonstrates the need for even greater eductaion about the use of contraception."
ReplyDeleteNo it doesn't.
>> making a very strong case for DC to invest more money into sex education at schools once he gets into power. This Labour government has let down young people.
ReplyDelete195,000 - 1/3 of which were repeat abortions so therefore 65,000 were repeat abortions.
ReplyDelete5000 of these were teenagers, a group one would assume run at a minimum from 15-19?
We can then assume that abortions occur for women aged between 15 and 50, that is a possible 35 year period.
This means that if repeat abortions were evenly distributed across age groups, each group (15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-50) we would see over 9250 abortions for each group.
Since the figure for abortions for teenagers is only 5000, almost half of the average for any group from 15-50, surely this is a good thing rather than a shocking statistic.
What point were you looking for Iain?
Scary Mary ... that is the one of the most obviously flawed piece of analysis I have seen in a long time. Congratulations, expect a letter from GB asking you to join to become his economic advisor.
ReplyDeleteIs it me or are the anti-abortion lot the same lot that creates the pressure for abortions with their branding of single mothers or young parents as harlets, whores and thugs?
ReplyDeleteTo add they also create the ignorance that leads to unplanned pregancy by resisting all effort to actually educate children about contraception before it's too late anyway.
In short I blame them for the situation, not the young ladies getting pregant and then having an abortion (be it in accordance with or against their will).
Rebel Saint. What on earth are you talking about? What is flawed? The only point I was making is that 5000 out of 65000 is a small number? Or do you think it is large?
ReplyDeleteI don't, as such, have a problem with this.
ReplyDeleteFetuses at the stages of growth up to the legally permitted date for abortion are not conscious, sentient creatures. They are blobs of tissue. There is no ethical issue.
The fact that some people - even teenagers - are having multiple abortions says to me they're getting it wrong, because there are much simpler and easier ways to avoid having a baby.
I would also be concerned that *I* am paying for other people's abortions, because I have no business paying for what other people decide to do in their lives.
When all is said and done, all contracts must be voluntary and well-informed; the only exception is self-defence.
Abortion does not violate this principle and therefore is ethical.