Aisling Bea Quotes

Portugal, a traditional Roman Catholic nation where the Church has always had great influence, had laws banning abortion. However, in a national referendum the Portuguese people voted overwhelming to allow abortion despite the Church’s stand. The Parliament then overwhelmingly passed a law legalizing abortion on demand up to the 10 the week of pregnancy. The President, though opposed personally to abortion signed the bill. This quotation illustrates a common occurrence in industrial democracies whereby politicians will not impose their personal moral views on the laws of society but may well have contrary personal views.

On this issue she and her father disagreed.

Churches are political organizations too and are subject to the forces of their membership. In the case of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1971 they passed resolutions to assure the right of a woman to have an abortion to protect her health. The position on abortion changed steadily thereafter to even pass Constitutional amendments to ban abortions except to save the life of the mother. See {614356},54122, {614358}, {614359}, {614360}, {614361} for the dynamic history of the change.

John Ashcroft was then the Attorney General and a foe of abortion.

Reactionary Southerners like Helms have always attributed any calls for change in their states to “outsiders” who were “invading.”

Sanger thought of as a radical feminist by many, was actually opposed to most abortions. This was not opposed on Biblical or religious grounds however. She saw most (non-medically indicated) abortions as necessitated by accidental, undesired pregnancies or pregnancies of women who could not economically afford a child. She felt the latter could and should be solved by progressive social and economic policies. And the former, could be prevented by contraceptives where were rarely used as the result of ignorance and the illegality of the sale of most devices.

There is a very slight risk to the woman with a modern abortion procedure. There is a much greater risk to a woman who chooses to bring the fetus to term and give birth. The risk is small but it is 14 times more risk of maternal mortality (death to the mother) than with an abortion. There is also a much higher proportion of mental health problems (eg Post Partum Psychosis) for women who give birth. Most anti abortion advocates argue the issue on moral grounds and their view that we have a moral obligation not to take life. This has great legitimacy and there is a very large minority of Americans who agree with this position. However, anti-abortion advocates like Fortenberry who either are ignorant of the medical science and statistics or knows but lies about it, harm the cause they advocate for by coming across to many Americans as ignorant and/or untruthful, and they discredit the many fair and honest abortion foes.

Part of this maldistribution problem is a general health care distribution problem in rural areas. The larger part however, is the result of the religious and right to life pressures which tend to have more affect in rural areas than in cities and suburbs. One pressure is the fear that abortion providers have as a result of the many murders and assaults of the right to life forces.

In American history Abortion has been legal for more time than it has been illegal. And most of the laws prohibiting it were unconstitutional. Even the Roman Catholic Church did not take the position that life begins at conception until 1869 so the notion, far from being a long standing tradition is just the opposite.