Why pro-choice is pro-family

There was once a time when anti-abortion was pro-family, because legal abortion helped to encourage premarital sex by making such sex less risky (the risk, of course, being a pregnancy).

However, those who advocated against premarital sex have totally and utterly lost. Premarital sex, today, is not merely one of two acceptable lifestyles; it’s now the norm. Virgins are now considered losers, and people who save themselves for marriage are considered weird or extreme religious nuts. Sarah Palin, the supposedly strongly Christian and anti-abortion candidate, was unable to keep her own brood from engaging in premarital sex. Instead of receiving censure for her inability to properly raise her children, she continues to receive adulating support from the Christian Right.

Pro-family advocates need to admit defeat on the premarital sex front and fight the current threat to family values: single motherhood. Abortion helps to prevent single motherhood. Anti-abortion advocates have actually been glorifying single motherhood, because they understand that they’ve lost the battle against premarital sex, so are endorsing single motherhood as the preferred alternative to abortion. Unfortunately, they are destroying the traditional family in the process.

I repeat: the biggest threat to family values is single motherhood. People who are pro-family need to make the fight against single motherhood their number one priority. Abortion should be considered preferable to single motherhood.

Comments

[lcs]

The strongest argument for abortion is overpopulation, which will ultimately destroy us, families and all.

[Φ]

Pro-family advocates have lost the battle against single motherhood to the same extent they have lost the battle against pre-marital sex, and for much the same reason: we have substantively removed the social penalties for it.

All the benefits afforded married couples with children are also afforded single mothers, and a few extra besides. Nowadays, many women can't think of a reason to settle down with a man likely to settle down with them.

But what does this have to do with abortion? Pro-life activists have been spectacularly unsuccessful at stopping legal abortion, and the current crop of bastards have been spawned notwithstanding abortion's availability. There just isn't much room to make abortion policy MORE liberal than it already is, whatever pro-life activists do or don't do.

[Peter A]

You're still using euphemisms. The problem is single motherhood in the lower classes. I know an Ivy league woman who got pregnant by accident shortly after college, had the baby, and still made it through law school. She married a businessman a few years later, had more kids. All of them smart, well adjusted. Republican voters and strong believers in family. The biggest threat to family values today is really the isolation of the low IQ population. In the old days people lived in smaller communities of mixed talent - a lower IQ family felt some social pressure to live up to prevailing norms. Now they don't give a shit. Even when women do get married in lower class communities usually neither the man nor the women takes that vow very seriously. In a meritocratic mobile society such as ours the smart, the ambitious, and the responsible flee to find their own the first chance they get. The result is that both black ghettos and white rust belt towns are decaying to bestial levels. Naturally the liberal answer to this is "more immigration!", i.e. send in hard working religious Latinos, Laotians and Somalis or whatever to those communities. And over the short-term that seems to work, sometimes, but of course what will happen is that the cream of the immigrants will again move off to better pastures leaving an even thicker layer of human sludge behind.

[Alkibiades]

You're forgetting that these same pro-family people believe that abortion is murder. As such they will never support abortion.

[The Engineer]

Nope.

You realize that all those SWPL types that put off childbirth for too long are going to China and other hellholes to adopt children, when at the same time 4 million children are aborted every year, don't you?

Is there some win-win solution that YOU can think of that will solve both dillemas?

[John]

I can't decide if you're serious, or if you're trying to make some satirical social comment, and I'm just not getting the joke.

On the (possibly flawed) assumption that you're serious, I would respond by saying that most people who are anti-abortion hold that view because they believe abortion as murder. Being "pro-family" is not the point. Abortion may be a net benefit to society and indirectly advance the "pro-family" agenda, but it's still murder. You can't negotiate or split the difference over that.

[The Engineer]

Planned Parenthood has been a part of Abby Johnson's life for the past eight years; that is until last month, when Abby resigned. Johnson said she realized she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

"I just thought I can't do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," said Jonhson. worked as the Bryan Planned Parenthood Director for two years.

According to Johnson, the non-profit was struggling under the weight of a tough economy, and changing it's business model from one that pushed prevention, to one that focused on abortion.

"It seemed like maybe that's not what a lot of people were believing any more because that's not where the money was. The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion and so I had a problem with that," said Johnson.

Johnson said she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions, something the Episcopalian church goer recently became convicted about.

"I feel so pure in heart (since leaving). I don't have this guilt, I don't have this burden on me anymore that's how I know this conversion was a spiritual conversion.

Dude, even the Planned Parenthood shock troops can't live with themselves for what they do.

[not too late]

I think HS misses part of the pro-life mentality. Many of the pro-life folks are against abortion because of their revulsion at the actual procedure.

Choosing single motherhood as the big social evil, while likely a convincing argument to many social conservatives, is basically a social engineering position, not a human rights position.

These are the same folks who pitied minorities in the 60's civil rights movement, but aren't AA supporters. They are for rights not privileges. In this case, they see the baby as the victim, not the mother, and not even society. This is part of the reason minorities get more sympathy than women(feminists). Civil Rights passed but the ERA didn't.

Planned Parenthood works against teen pregnancy(their code for single motherhood) with very poor success because they give contraception to poor (read stupid) women who don't use it right and end up pregnant anyway.

Even religion, which deplores single motherhood, does so because of its impact on children. It deprives kids of a very important influence, a father. They may pity the woman as a fool, but mostly not. To these religious types, killing the baby is worse, so they aren't going there.

The biggest punishment for the single mother is that it reduces her desirability as a mate to any guy worth having. Prosperous self respecting men may not demand that a wife be a virgin, but having a couple of illegitimate brats from various fathers(cads) is a no go.

[Peter A]

Doesn't the fact that SWPLs go to China to adopt rather than taking the unwanted spawn of the American lower class indicate that at some level they all know HBD is real?

[Melykin]

The Engineer wrote
"...all those SWPL types that put off childbirth for too long are going to China and other hellholes to adopt children..."
---------------------------------

Apparently a lot of the babies adopted from China were KIDNAPPED from their parents by organizations that sell babies. It would seem that there is no activity so despicable but someone in China will undertake it to make money. The Chinese may have high IQ's, but a great many of them, including the ones running the country, seem to be morally bankrupt.

However, the Chinese have at least found a way to control their population. If only people in Africa and the Middle East would do like-wise.

[Henceforth Danforth]

Agree with Peter A - Planted Parenthood needs to go back to its roots, and look to increase abortion rates among the NAMs. Offer 10 free lottery tickets for every abortion. Whatever it takes. Civilization is at stake, it's no longer an academic issue.

[kurt9]

You realize that all those SWPL types that put off childbirth for too long are going to China and other hellholes to adopt children, when at the same time 4 million children are aborted every year, don't you?

Why is this a problem?

[not too late]

"Agree with Peter A - Planted Parenthood needs to go back to its roots, and look to increase abortion rates among the NAMs. Offer 10 free lottery tickets for every abortion. Whatever it takes. Civilization is at stake, it's no longer an academic issue."

That's a tall order.

Blacks abort 50% of their pregnancies now, yet lead in single motherhood.

Asians have the lowest abortion rate and the lowest single motherhood.

See how that works.

It's like a slut index.

Maybe more brains=less slutty

[HS: High IQ people are better at using birth control, and probably don't even have as much sex in the first place. Yet high IQ people are most in favor of legalized abortion because they have the most to lose from getting pregnant and being forced to carry the fetus to term. Also, high IQ people are less likely to believe in conventional religion (preferring Gainism).]

[JewishAtheist]

WTF? Are you really under the delusion that "pro-lifers" are in any way rational? How old are you?

[kurt9]

I think much of the debate about abortion is quite silly. There will never be a woman of means for whom abortion will not be an option. This is a reality that will never change. Thus, any debate debate about abortion is really a debate about low-income women having access to it. Nothing less and nothing more. Only within this context can there be any meaningful discussion of abortion.

[rob]

"most people who are anti-abortion hold that view because they believe abortion as murder."

No, they don't. People who commit first degree murder deserve either to go to prison until they die there, or get put to death. What pro-lifers advocate imprisoning or executing women who get abortions?

[HS: Good point!]

[Jim]

Good post and good comments.

It's the act of abortion that's revolting to people. It is killing a baby. I think with HBD awareness there may be not a "truce" but a tractable political compromise that amounts to
a) not too late and
b) abort *your* own damn kids (i.e. parental notification and approval; no propagadizing in schools, no taxpayer funds)

There probably is no restuffing the premarital genie. But cultural movement is possible. Having less of a hookup culture and more of a find-a-compatible-spouse-and-marry-early culture is not impossible. Hey, we've got computers ... it's actually easier to find a highly compatible mate than when i was young and horny.

I don't disagree with PeterA's comment -- although working class white communities are hardly even in the ballpark of the bestiality of the black ghetto.

But please people ... enough with the "religious Hispanics" or "Hispanic family values" nonsense. Hispanic illegitimacy is 50%. They aculturate to American *underclass* norms.

Everyone taking about these issue should at least have some familiarity with the data. It's not like the government hides it:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_07.pdf

Click in a few pages to Table 1. The debacle that is America will become clear.

[HS: Premarital sex is the norm for ALL social classes. But the ability to have sex and not get pregnant as a result of it is correlated with IQ. And high IQ women have the most to lose from pregnancy, while low IQ women actually gain from it because they get welfare money to do what they are biologically programmed to want to do, which is to bear an raise children.]

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

"The biggest punishment for the single mother is that it reduces her desirability as a mate to any guy worth having. Prosperous self respecting men may not demand that a wife be a virgin, but having a couple of illegitimate brats from various fathers(cads) is a no go."

One thing I've gathered over the years is that single motherhood is not necessarily a deal-killer for a woman's relationship prospects. It's a factor, but not always a huge factor. Having just one child lessens the adverse effects, though having two children by the same father may be okay in some cases.

Other things being equal, single motherhood is less of a drawback for a woman than being an introverted antisocial nerd is for a man.

Peter

[Gamma Man]

"Doesn't the fact that SWPLs go to China to adopt rather than taking the unwanted spawn of the American lower class indicate that at some level they all know HBD is real?"
Indeed! Never hesitate to openly ask such hypocrites what the hell is wrong with adopting Black kids? Watch them tip-toe around the issue. Deep down they know they are being racists following their pitiful PC creed.

[HS: My understanding is that it's not so easy for white parents to adopt black children--the system doesn't approve of cross-racial adoption.]

[not too late]

"What pro-lifers advocate imprisoning or executing women who get abortions?"

Some seem to advocate the old system where the doctors/abortionist was prosecuted. Before abortion was legal, the woman was considered a secondary victim.

[Alexander Lamb]

"Premarital sex, today, is not merely one of two acceptable lifestyles; it’s now the norm. Virgins are now considered losers, and people who save themselves for marriage are considered weird or extreme religious nuts."

For men, yes. For women on the other hand...

Wasn't this one of the major themes of Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons.

[mike]

"What pro-lifers advocate imprisoning or executing women who get abortions?"

Umm, all of them?

The whole point of passing anti-abortion laws is so that people who commit the act (abortionists and mothers) will be locked up. You can't make that connection?

[not too late]

Off topic sort of, but a family value killer is family law. Consider alimony. 40 years after "no fault" divorce, people are still getting killed by idiotic alimony judgements.

recent wall street journal article from Oct. 31.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505700448957522.html

[ScrapingFetus]

"Yet high IQ people are most in favor of legalized abortion because they have the most to lose from getting pregnant and being forced to carry the fetus to term."

Very, very. true. That's a big part of the reason the Evangelical right hates abortion. They want the *elites* to have to wallow in the mire of unwanted children like they do. 'If Al Gore's kids are having pre-marital sex they should be forced to have them babies just like Palin's girl. Donchathink Earline?'

[Lee]

"The strongest argument for abortion is overpopulation, which will ultimately destroy us, families and all."

No one seems to get the first comment posted on here.

This really does nail it home. The group/class that has the highest rate of single motherhood and the most babies are NAMs. Abortion for those groups help to prevent even more future delinquents and gang-bangers and the crazy unlawful population in check, the babies that are most likely to grow up to be those types come from low value NAM mothers of course.

(I believe John Stossel in the book "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity" wrote that the reason why we had souring crime rates from 1989-1993 peak was that the juveniles that committed the crimes during that period came from the late 70s where it was harder to get abortions and so they grew up in a hard life with no adult figure in the house and no values, and so this is the result. With abortions, that means less of those juveniles existing and thus, after 1993, crime rates started going down after the peak since abortion was made easier after the early 1980s.)

Without abortion helping to keep the population of NAMs in check, the NAMs (who have the most babies at the highest risk of degrading lifestyles and crime) will be out of control and the values of this already NAM-overpopulated country will go out the door while crime skyrockets as more and more NAMs have unchecked pregnancies/single motherhood without abortion.

We should outlaw abortion for those of the high value and high IQ class since they actually have a genetic contribution to civilization and have abortion available for the low-IQ, high crime, NAM underclass, since unchecked births from that class with no abortion will contribute even more to our civilization degrading.

We should encourage those with high values/IQ and potential to contribute to civilization to have more babies, perhaps some sort of government incentive, and another government incentive and abortion to discourage the NAM class from having lots of babies.

[The Engineer]

My point is that abortion is not an either/ or proposition (either we have abortion, or we have more unwanted children).

We could do exactly what we used to do: outlaw abortion and have lots and lots of adoptions. All those people with Chinese babies could be adopting American kids, if they weren't all aborted.

It's a win-win situation.

Well, except for all the kids in China, Russia, and Hondoras waiting to be adopted (or stolen from their parents, as the case may be).

[The Engineer]

My argument about adoption aside, I do think that HS's argument is logical. If premarital sex is the norm, birth control or not, there is GOING to be a lot of unwanted pregnancies.

Look, the actual, real world effectiveness of birth control is pretty damn poor. At real world effectiveness rates, with all the whoopee going on, there is just going to be a lot of unwanted pregnancies.

I actually think that much of the inroads that the Democrats have made with educated, affluent people is that they want the ability to get their daughter an abortion if she needs one.

I wonder if that is testable? Could you look at the GSS, look at people that have daughters vs. sons, and see that effect in the data?

It's just that, from a personal perspective, knowing what an abortion is and how it is done... it's barbaric. If they euthenized cats that way, you'd have vet clinics being bombed.

[Gamma Man]

Ziggy, they could always adopt Black kids abroad, like Madonna. Swipples don't seem too eager to adopt them.

[Underachiever]

Halfsig,

You might like this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427321.000-clever-fools-why-a-high-iq-doesnt-mean-youre-smart.html?page=1

Researchers are trying to draw a distinction between having high analytic abilities and using those abilities.

[Skot German]

"most people who are anti-abortion hold that view because they believe abortion as murder."

No, they don't. People who commit first degree murder deserve either to go to prison until they die there, or get put to death. What pro-lifers advocate imprisoning or executing women who get abortions?

What? Your saying they don't believe its murder because they don't advocate the penalty you think is appropriate? I think that is an example of an ignoratio enlenchi.

[Wm Tanksley]

"Abortion helps to prevent single motherhood."

No, it doesn't. It prevents some of the consequences of motherhood -- such as childbirth, raising a child, and so on. The motherhood is irrevocable.

The question remains whether the cost is worth the benefits.

-Wm

[HS: The normal definition of a mother is a woman who has given birth to a child. Without the birth, there's no motherhood.

Furthermore, we usually don't consider women who gave up their babies for adoption to be single mothers.

So yes, abortion prevents single motherhood.]

[rob]

not too late,

If abortion were murder, considering the woman who found and hired a professional assassin to murder a baby to be his victim too is both abhorrent and inconsistent. Should all women who pay to have someone murdered be treated as secondary victims?

Not to mention, these days there abortifacient drugs. Sure someone sold her the murder weapon, but committing the murder is obviously worse. There may be no one to prosecute except the formerly pregnant woman.

Unless pro-lifers would argue that women who slaughter babies (some women have had more than one abortion, are they serial killers?) were in such bad situations that murder was hunky dory, but that sets a bad precedent prosecuting other murderers.

[jwbs]

Government funded abortions with mandatory sterilization.

Crisis averted.

[Stopped Clock]

http://nzconservative.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/laws-and-the-blank-slaters/

New Zealand mayor suggests sterilizing the poor

[ScrapingFetus]

"I actually think that much of the inroads that the Democrats have made with educated, affluent people is that they want the ability to get their daughter an abortion if she needs one."

I don't doubt it. Even if it is murdering a baby, would you want to throw you life (or your scholarship or your year in Prague) away cause you got pregnant? Lower classes have more kids cause they don't have anything better to do and the bible tells them to.

[rob]

Mike,

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/abortion/2003s3.html

CHAPTER 74 -- PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS
...
(e) A woman upon whom a partial-birth abortion is performed may not be prosecuted under this section, for a conspiracy to violate this section, or for an offense under section 2, 3, or 4 of this title based on a violation of this section.".

So, do most pro-lifers want women who murder their babies punished, it doesn't sound that way from the legislation they write. Was I just wrong on the whole murder is wrong and should seriously punished thing?

It is possible that pro-lifers are lying, and really do want women who get abortions punished. I certainly would not accuse them of dishonesty.

[Park Slope Pubby]

We can't just keep wailing about how "bestial" it all is. People who post here pride themselves on their honesty in confronting the HBD basis of the underclass (low IQ).

I happen to think that the people writing here have the right analysis. But I'd like to see the next step. Given that analysis, what do we do?

I think posters here take great pride in being honest about these things, but it's a kind of self-pleasuring. If you're all so smart, and can see the problem so clearly, can you also invent a workable solution? And can you then provide leadership to achieve it. Come on, quit your belly-aching, and put those IQ's you take such pride in to work.

[not too late]

rob,

I think you misunderstand. I am repeating what I have heard, not making the case that there is some sort of theoretical consistency in a particular position. If abortion were not legal, logically there would be some penalty for the crime. Seems to me the way it used to be the woman would report the abortionist and he would be prosecuted. This is rather like prosecuting a drug dealer not the consumer. If it doesn't meet your standard for perfect justice, okay. But that is they way the law was applied back then.

[Bettina]

Megan McArdle had an interesting post back in her Jane Galt days about how the rate of conception has gone way up in tandem with the rate of abortion.

IOW when abortions weren't easy to get, people took more care to not get pregnant, whether by abstaining or being more conscientious about using birth control.

The idea that abortion is not just the unlucky woman's last resort but also the lazy woman's default form of birth control makes the whole debate that much more difficult, IMO.

[mike]

"with all the whoopee going on, there is just going to be a lot of unwanted pregnancies"

Note that the number of "unwanted pregnancies" skyrocketed after effective contraception came along and abortion was legalized. It's clear that women vastly overestimate their ability to prevent (and willingness to terminate) unwanted pregnancies.

"It is possible that pro-lifers are lying..."

So, are you one of those people who think that if Obama REALLY wanted socialist medicine, he wouldn't be promoting the "public option" or the rest of the "health care reform" mess?

Just because some proposed pro-life legislation doesn't criminalize mothers and abortionists doesn't mean that pro-lifers don't want to criminalize abortionists and mothers who seek abortions. Believe it or not, it's possible that pro-life advocates are susceptible to the same political calculation that binds advocates of every other issue. Considering the current political climate on abortion, it's understandable that pro-life advocates would try to make their anti-abortion measures as toothless as possible.

[Sideways]

1) why are people acting like premarital sex is something relatively new? It's the norm in societies where women are not sequestered. The unusual thing is that men don't quickly marry the women they knock up.

2) anti-abortion people don't generally think abortion is murder. If they did, there wouldn't be any living abortion providers. They say it's murder but act like it's a distasteful but not completely horrible act. People generally don't allow unarmed mass-murderers the police refuse to arrest to live, and you couldn't get a jury to convict for murder on that if 45% of the population thought that it was simply killing a mass-murderer.

[Sheila Tone]

"On the (possibly flawed) assumption that you're serious, I would respond by saying that most people who are anti-abortion hold that view because they believe abortion as murder."

I have not found this to be true of lower-class women who give birth out of wedlock. They don't tend to observe any religious requirements that restrict their behavior. No, they just want to become mothers on their own terms, usually involving government payments. And the "abortion is murder" argument gives them an excuse for their selfish, irresponsible choice. It even lets them claim the moral upper hand.

A lot of them get married to someone, sooner or later, and still collect welfare. Marriage is not hard to do. Just say it, HS: The solution isn't marriage. The solution is to require proof of financial responsibility at every child's birth in order to avoid government removal of one's child.

[Trumwill]

There just isn't much room to make abortion policy MORE liberal than it already is, whatever pro-life activists do or don't do.

Yes there is. They could force or coerce doctors (gynecologists, presumably) and hospitals (who would in turn coerce doctors) to offer abortion services to people that want them.

[David Alexander]

*It's a win-win situation.*

The problem is that it's far cheaper to get an abortion than to go through the entire process of dumping out a kid that somebody may want with few health defects. If we closed off the abortion route, we'd get stuck with kids that nobody wanted living in poor conditions that aren't marketable for adoptions. There is no market for adopting NAM babies in the US, and the market for the spawn of the prole white children is slightly better, but if you're a high IQ SWPL, the Chinese kid may give a better return with a potentially higher IQ, and the African kid makes you feel better than you helped a impoverished child in Africa.

*it's barbaric*

Sparing (low IQ) kids from having to live in a world where they'll be miserable, poor, and envious of the rich is a noble goal.

[Sheila Tone]

"Yes there is. They could force or coerce doctors (gynecologists, presumably) and hospitals (who would in turn coerce doctors) to offer abortion services to people that want them."

Turambar, I've asked around a bit among my clients, and found no significant evidence that poor women are giving birth due to lack of available abortion services. They often act self-righteously aghast at the idea.

[reframe]

The HBD crowd should rally in favor of sterilization measures. There are several possibilities that seem very reasonable, such as giving all young men reversible vasectomies, or giving all young women 5-year Norplant injections.

There's no reason why this kind of initiative can't work, if it's marketed correctly. It doesn't have to be racist or targeted at poor people; it's every good SWPL parent's worst nightmare that their teenager will get pregnant. I you'd be surprised how much support there could be for initiatives like this, even from liberals. My sister is about as liberal as they come, and even she would support this kind of measure (she works at a morphine clinic, and has seen the fallout resulting from addict mothers).

It could even be marketed as a scheme to *help* NAMS, the argument being that teenage pregnancy and attendant social ills are a big reason why such groups don't achieve success at the same level as non-NAMS.

It could also be linked to receipt of welfare handouts. Middle America would get behind that - you can't buy food for yourself, ok, we'll help you out. But you have to agree to some fertility restrictions in return.

[Sheila Tone]

On a related (at least I think so) note: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33591333/ns/us_news-life/

Half of U.S. children, and 90 percent of black children, will be on food stamps at some time during their childhood.

[Sheila Tone]

I've been trying to find out what percentage of children live in families who receive cash aid, but I can't find a source.

[Trumwill]

///There is no market for adopting NAM babies in the US,///

I'm not sure that's true. I think if you have a healthy baby, you can find parents for them. That's how it stands now. There is a question, though, of whether there would truly be enough prospective adoptive parents if abortion were banned. My understanding is that there would be a shortage but pro-life folks believe that the supply would be diminished somewhat by fewer unplanned pregnancies in the first place.

They may be right about a reduction of unwanted pregnancies, but what I suspect you'd see a lot of is parents that would ordinarily adopt choosing to keep their children. In some cases, the situation won't last, which brings me to the next issue:

The biggest problem with not being able to adopt kids out, though, are those that enter the system when they are no longer babies and have developed (often disagreeable) personalities and expectations (often assigned to them by inept parents) apart from the nigh-infinite malleability that parents (incorrectly) assign to children.

[Gil]

As rob said if pro-lifer are to be consistent and could change the law then the mother and abortion practitioner should both be charged with murder (or attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder). Any exceptions mean they don't see the foetus as a baby. To a pro-lifer hearing the retort "but backyard abortion will re-emerge which could see the mother disabled or even die" they should reply "the murdering mother deserves what she gets and if she survives the backyard abortion then she also spend the rest of life in jail".

However do pro-lifers treat naturaally miscarried babies in the same terrible loss as a baby who suddenly dies and holds a funeral and expects the expecting father and mother to grieve with the same intensity as they would if their baby had suddenly died?

[Jack]

Abortion should be legal only for women with IQ's under 110.

The end.

[not too late]

"Note that the number of "unwanted pregnancies" skyrocketed after effective contraception came along and abortion was legalized. It's clear that women vastly overestimate their ability to prevent (and willingness to terminate) unwanted pregnancies."

Well, Mike, looks like you got the quote of the day.

Incompetent people typically overestimate their abilities.

The bottom line is not that the poor/stupid/irresponsible have too many kids, although you could argue they do. It is that the able have to few. In order to win in the human race, you increase your numbers while decreasing theirs. We are doing the opposite. Births are down among the smart and the dumb, but they are falling so much faster among the responsible, that it makes it look like the losers are gaining on us just because they are holding their own, plus immigration (which is our own stupid fault).

Illegitimate births are up as a percentage. That is because our numbers are falling which forces their percentage to go up. The short answer is we keep violating the natural laws where the strong breed their own and destroy/outcompete the others. Anyone with a pencil, paper and brain could have calculated this long ago. Our policies encourage the least fit and able to breed, and discourage and punish the most competent. It is a losing strategy.

As for adoption, that preserves the genes of the biological parents.

Do the current policies lead to the goals you have?

[Trumwill]

///Turambar, I've asked around a bit among my clients, and found no significant evidence that poor women are giving birth due to lack of available abortion services. They often act self-righteously aghast at the idea.///

You live in an urban area, though. I'm sure it's not a problem there or the urban area I'm from. But according to pro-choice activists, there is a shortage of doctors providing abortion services. Enough so that they pushed Obama to promise to force hospitals that receive federal funds to provide them. Obama made the promise, but doesn't seem to have acted on it.

[J.L.]

"anti-abortion people don't generally think abortion is murder. If they did, there wouldn't be any living abortion providers. They say it's murder but act like it's a distasteful but not completely horrible act. People generally don't allow unarmed mass-murderers the police refuse to arrest to live, and you couldn't get a jury to convict for murder on that if 45% of the population thought that it was simply killing a mass-murderer."

I used to be a staunch pro-lifer on abortion (i.e., staunchly anti-abortion, and in favor of strict limitations on its use). I have since developed a more moderate view that acknowledges that an outright ban on the procedure (or something close to it) is impracticable, but which still acknowledges the moral issues regarding the loss of unborn life.

Anti-abortion views should not be automatically treated as either simplistic and unsophisticated. In fact, the manner in which abortion is sought to be limited or banned by the pro-life/anti-abortion movement actually shows a nuanced understanding of the situation. Most pro-life/anti-abortion people consider abortion to be the taking of a human life. However, the law treats the taking of a human life in different ways, not just as "murder." The taking of a human life can also be manslaughter (if by, for example, by recklessness or by accident), or it can be justifiable and therefore legal (such as in the use of self-defense). In regard to abortion, the effort to limit or ban it is ususally through laws that do just that, but which focus on the act of the professionals who perform abortions, while tending to absolve the women who contracted for the procedure. This is a nuanced effort to deal with a number of realities:(a) the perception that an unborn child (the fetus) is a living human (or, alternatively, a living developing human); (b) the perception that the termination of this entity is the termination of a life; (c) the perception that the life terminated by abortion, as either human or "developing" human is worthy of protection; (d) the perception that the woman who would contract for the procedure is usually (as the pro-choice side often asserts) in a very delicate and difficult situation which drove her to seek the abortion; and (e) the need, notwithstanding "d", for any law to have effectiveness (hence focusing on the doctor).

Further, let me add, that even if one were to concede that unborn life (as, say, "developing" life rather than as fully developed) does not merit the same protection as born (i.e. "fully developed") life, this does not end the matter: note how the lives and well-being of sentient being other than "fully developed humans" (i.e., animals) are protected (i.e., although euthanasia is allowed, they are protected against abuse and mistreatment). I would suggest that the fetus, as an arguably "developing" human life, at the very least merits some level of protection which parallels that given to other sentient life (and, indeed, heightened, given that this is "developing" human life.) If we are going to protect animals against abusive conditions, I don't see why "partial birth abortion" should escape scrutiny.

[S]

The answer is simple. It's just not (at the moment) politically palatable.

PAY teenage, underclass (i.e., dumb) women NOT to get pregnant. Have a system of clinics, she comes in, gets a preg test. If neg, she gets a check. Come back next month, same deal. We could, if we wanted, even provide free birth control. If she's getting a check, that is enough reward to get her to remember to say "no," or "no glove, no love."

And, PAY smart women to HAVE children.

A sliding scale with 100 in the center: Beginning with women of IQ 100, for each IQ point and for each kid, the payments increase. For 99 and below, for each point below 99, the payments increase NOT to get preg.

The only problem today is the perverse incentives of the current welfare system that pays dumbs to breed and smarts to NOT.

[free thinker]

I have a suggestion (which I realize has no chance of ever being enacted.) Offer teenage girls a small sum of money--say $3,000--if they will have an IUD implanted. This form of birth control works about as well as any other and doesn't require a high IQ to be effective. The IUD can be removed at any time if the recipient pays back the money. After age 25, the money doesn't have to be paid back. This would have some mildly positive eugenic implications and improve the quality of life for many lower class women who now began having children before they financially and emotionally ready.

[Juan Castro]

The pro-life community is not against abortion because of some over-arching political strategy of being pro-family, they simply feel the act of abortion is murder because it's taking the life of an innocent child.

I'm personally in the "abortion is wrong, but shouldn't be outlawed" camp.

If the pro-life community were really strategic, they would be adamantly pro-choice since it kills off so many future Democrat voters.

[Slingblade]

Doesn't the fact that SWPLs go to China to adopt rather than taking the unwanted spawn of the American lower class indicate that at some level they all know HBD is real?

My own former SWPL governor adopted two girls - one from China, the next from India. Strange that he didn't choose to adopt girls (or, God forbid, boys) from, say, Kenya and Bolivia. No idea why.

But sidestepping the question of abortion and going to the question of how we deal with premarital sex, even amongst the religious, I'd say that the real problem is giving the young rational, practical reasons to at least obstain from sex for a time. It can no longer simply be "because God said so." So how about at least laying down ground rules for delaying the point of consummation until they know that they care about the person, know that the person cares about them, and know that the attraction is more than skin deep. Then if they do go pregnant they'll at least have a greater likelihood of making an honest go of the relationship. The rates of abortion and illegitimacy would both decline.

[PH]

I assume you mean that the greatest threat to the family is single mothers...AND single fathers.

That notwithstanding, you paint single motherhood and single mothers with a too-broad brush. The single mothers I know are all educated and in most cases professionals; 99% of them had their children in marriage and deliberately; they provide love, shelter, education, attention and create true "homes" for their children; and they have sacrificed much in order to maintain a good and cooperative relationship with the children's father (singular). These ARE families. (The same goes for the single fathers I know.) All, by the way, are seeking a mate for marriage and family. These are not people who are rejecting and disregarding these institutions or their value, personally and societally. These are the people who, along with those marriages that are healthy and stable, form the very strength and backbone of society.

[Ken]

Abortion does not prevent single motherhood. It just ends it.

[GEAH]

"Sarah Palin, the supposedly strongly Christian and anti-abortion candidate, was unable to keep her own brood from engaging in premarital sex. Instead of receiving censure for her inability to properly raise her children, she continues to receive adulating support from the Christian Right."

Of course you aren't Republican, Democratic or Libertarian.

You're too kooky for any of those groups. That sort of mindless invective sounds Green to me.

[Subotai]

"Abortion helps to prevent single motherhood."

This is patently false. Single motherhood is vastly more widespread now than it was before abortion became widely available.

[abe]

Haha, Derb has gotten himself into some trouble at The Corner by linking to HS's argument. That shooting at Texas took the heat of him though.

[Tim]

If abortion on demand were to really cut down on single motherhood, then why has the illegitimacy rate exploded along with the growing number of abortions since Roe v. Wade? Black women have abortions at disproportionately high rates, and yet the black illegitimacy rate is over 70%. This isn't difficult HS. If abortion is your idea of an effective way of reducing single motherhood, then I would hate to see what your idea of an ineffective method for reducing the rate is.

[Slingblade]

Derb - and God knows I love the man, and bought his book - is still wrong, because black illegitimacy rates climbed even after abortion was legalized.

The proper explanation was made here earlier: legal abortion gives men and women both a more casual attitude about having sex, and yet the women, once impregnated, are less likely to actually have abortions when faced with the choice.

And - an argument Derb would surely agree with - any reduction in single families caused by legalized abortion is more than made up for by our importation of immigrants who are highly likely to have out-of-wedlock births. In my state the Hispanic illegitimacy rate is more than 4 times that of whites.

[timdownunder]

I suppose you're right - dead children certainly won't grow up with bad family values.

While we're at it, we should just kill all the poor people and put an end to poverty right?

[HS: NO, we should just try to limit the number of children that they have.]