Lord Saletan Casts a Gracious Eye

Wow, Will Saletan has noticed that people who claim to want to reduce the incidence of abortions are unwilling to take real steps to do so, since real steps would involve broadening access to birth control! OMG no way! I guess it'll probably take a few more years before he sees that there might be this thread running through these desires to increase the negative consequences for women having sex, a thread like...teh sexism! Because it's almost as if these pro-lifers care more about controlling women's sexuality than they do about wombabies. Almost. Ha, just kidding, he'll never notice that in a million, million years, because he's too busy giving concern-troll advice to abortion-rights supporters that if they will just admit that abortion is a bad, evil thing that we should all deplore, then magically we'll be able to come to a consensus with the anti-abortion crew. Since they're interested in empirical evidence on the best ways to reduce the number of abortions in the country, even if the best methods involve promoting women's sexual autonomy. Right? Oh noes, what is this?

Less contraception, less sex, more women choosing life. So, the abortion rate among these women went down, right?

Wrong. It went up. The decline in contraception overwhelmed the decline in sexual activity, resulting in a higher rate of unintended pregnancy. And the increase in unintended pregnancy overwhelmed the increase in women choosing life, resulting in more abortions. From a pro-life standpoint, trading contraception for abstinence and a "culture of life" was a net loss.

That's why Ryan insists on birth control. He's tired of pious slogans and symbolic bills crafted to save more congressional seats than babies. He's had enough of the debate between life and choice. He wants a new abortion debate. "You're either for reducing the number, or you're not," he says. He's made his decision. Now make yours.

I made mine a long time ago, dickweed. I'm a feminist. Look into it some time.

Comments

[dogfacegeorge]

"Dickweed?" Is that some state-of-art term I'm not familiar with?

[The Modesto Kid]

Dickweed.

[The Modesto Kid]

(Also it is in the OED, which has its citations from 1984 (in a slang dictionary) and 1986 (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure). So hardly cutting-edge.

[Scott Lemieux]

I was just amazed that his book about abortion got such strong reviews. Once pictures Saletan walking into a Planned Parenthood and executive meeting and saying "Hey, ladies--I just heard about this Margaret Sanger person! Have you ever considered that access abortion could be about preventing unwanted pregnancies rather than just about getting them for your own sake?"

[Katherine]

I have no illusions about how they're going to respond to those appeals to reduce the number of abortions. But don't they look like assholes when they do? And doesn't that make it good political strategy?

[belle waring]

it's a great political strategy. the thing is, saletan is presenting this amazing fact as if it were something totally knew, when in reality every abortion-rights aupporter he harangued about coming together to reduce abortions must have pointed it out. he pens these great "no one likes abortion so lets work together to make abortions less frequent" things without ever even alluding to the fact that most anti-abortion people are against sexual liberalization of every kind, even to the point of wanting to repeal griswold. and now he's all, wow, check this out!

[belle waring]

"knew" should be "new". we all knew this allegedly new thing.

[Jeff R.]

I went to college with someone named Richard Weed. No prize for guessing his nickname.

More on topic: Not too long ago, I ran across the Sep. 17, 2001, New Yorker (that is, the one that was in my mailbox on Sep. 12), that I never bothered to throw away. The lead editorial that week was about treating reducing the number of abortions as an engineering problem. The author compared how the auto industry researched fatalities and has made adjustments to prevent them in the future. So, if you goal is reducing the number of abortions, looking at the data would tell you the most effective way of doing it would be to have comprehensive sex ed and wide availibility of contraception.

[xian]

We were saying "dickweed" in the 1970s. A classmade of mine was named Richard Weed, in fact, poor guy.

[Steve]

Belle, to be aware of the Griswold thing, he'd have to listen to icky hairy feminist girls. Just smile and bake some cookies for the Slate menfolk.

[aaron]

hell hath no fury like a feminist pwned

[aaron]

actually, to be honest, i don't know what i just typed. it just sounded cool.

[dogfacegeorge]

"So, if your goal is reducing the number of abortions, looking at the data would tell you the most effective way of doing it would be to have comprehensive sex ed and wide availibility of contraception."

When the Israelites came into the Promised Land, God told them to kill every man, woman, child, cow, goat, etc. living there; to burn all the buildings; to destroy all the crops; and to poison all the wells. In other words, to commit genocide with extreme prejudice.

Suppose you were one of the Canaanites living there when the Israelites invaded. Would you be able to reason with them? Maybe work out a compromise? No - their God would not permit it.

Now God tells the anti-abortion crowd that contraception is a sin. You cannot reason with them about this. They will never compromise about this.

So if you really want to engineer a means to reduce abortions, you have to factor in the beliefs of the anti-abortionists. You have to work with the opponents you have, not the opponents you wish you had.