I remember that, Byron--they cancelled their demonstration, and there was not a lot of ugliness.

Here is the thing with late term abortions--they are done ONLY in cases where the mother's life is in danger, or if there is something else wrong, such as jeopardized fertility, etc. I believe the rate of late term abortions is less than 4% of all performed, and one can ONLY have one due to a dangerous situation.

I think the best way to reach out to Dems for Life is to work together with them and work to reduce unwanted, unplanned pregnancies. Instead of compromisong a woman's constitutional right to choose, let's all work on easier access to birth control, additional funding for places like Planned Parenthood, and comprehensive sex ed in schools. There is room for them in the tent without having to compromise our principles.

Of course, I'd suggest that among the things that needs to be dropped is the "constitutional right to choose" ... there is no such thing and Roe v Wade does nothing to establish such a concept. What you're effectively saying, Andrea, is that there's room for us in the tent as long as we agree with you.

I've been in the tent for some time now. Never left, in fact. I'd claim that the Democratic tradition of sticking up for the helpless includes both the unborn as well as women with their lives and/or health engangered by a pregnancy.

Late term abortions are a great place to start in that they are already allowed protection under Roe v Wade, but unlike the characterization above, not all states make even that restriction. Clinton sought to enact that on a national level, but got rebuffed by more politically opportunistic Republicans who didn't want him to weasel out of the partial birth ban. Here's a great compromise: let's enact both (with the natural restrictions on health or the mom, rape, incest, the usual). That's a relatively small step, though ... maybe 2% of the total abortions performed, with perhaps a high percentage of even that still allowed with the exceptions provided.

In short, what's needed is more than that which nibbles away at a 1 or 2 percent reduction. There are bigger fish to fry and we're still talking about over a million abortions a year. Easier access to birth control, I'm all for. Comprehensive sex ed, to me, includes discussion on abstinence as a starting point. Planned Parenthood funding, quite frankly, I'm more than a little skeptical of.

What needs to be honestly debated is the grounds for determining what cost, what penalties, are acceptable across society for abortions outside of exceptions provided. Presently, the restrictions (in law and under debate) prohibit action by the doctor. You've even got the likes of Tom Coburn suggesting a death penalty for doctors who perform an abortion. To me, and I suspect numerous others in the middle of this issue, that's the wrong approach. Even if abortions were outlawed completely (again ... save for the exceptions provided), you'd still need competent doctors familiar with the procedures.

What if, instead, the penalties were shifted to the parents (mom -OR- dad) AND they were done so in a way that the penalties were relatively unobtrusive? By way of example, let's say such a penalty was so many hours of community service (no fines, no jail time) ... possibly even focused on activities with children. Pick a number of hours ... 40, 400, whatever .... To the extent I've bothered to think it through, if you establish such penalties, it demands a certain amount of introspection on the issue both in terms of the decision going into having an abortion as well as the chances of any repeat of such activity.

There's a number of ways that such a penalty structure can be arranged ... either parent can serve it out, it can be postponed under certain guidelines (say the mom is still in Junior High, for instance). But if one central complaint among even pro-choice moderates is regarding the use of abortion as a form of birth control, I think such a measure goes a fair ways towards cutting into that percentage. Suddenly, instead of dealing with 1 or 2% of the total number of aborted pregnancies, we're dealing with double digits. The longer such penalties are in place, the more the costs and benefits of premarital sex become an issue of more thought, potentially going so far as to reduce the number of situations that lead to unwanted pregnancies.

Yeah, I mean, this is an issue that I have been struggling with a lot lately. I know that I have some serious problems with aborition, but I also have some serious problems with banning it. I don't know exactly what I believe.

What I do know is that you are right about sex ed. It has to start with abstinence. It shouldn't end there, in my opinion, but any other system is just encouraging kids to have sex because without the simple barrier of being told not to do it, more kids will do it. Contraceptives should be more honestly addressed- they aren't as useless as the abstinence-only crowd would like to believe, but they aren't nearly as effective as the Planned Parenthood crowd would like you to believe. And even at their best, contraceptives only protect from disease and pregnancy; they do nothing to address the more pervasive problems of teenage sex- the spiritual and psychological impact such an important decision entails and the social degradation that widespread, open extra marital sex is having on our civilization. So I agree- abstinence, plus an open discussion of contraception and also a frank discussion of the dangers of "non intercourse" sex acts (which many teens are turning to in the delusion that they are "safe").

But abortion is the real problem. Another aspect goes beyond individual health and is related to societal health. The only way to have a happy, healthy society is to have a virtuous society. And the only way to achieve virtue- which is by its very nature not our natural inclination most of the time- is to suffer negative consequences or fear negative consequences from unvirtuous acts so that you no longer do them. When you divorce an unvirtuous act (such as extra marital sex- by "marital" I mean a more general "long term, committed relationship" so that our gay friends can still be included) from its negative consequences, then there is no reason to restrain from participating in that act. Thus the virtue of a society is diminished, and with it the stability and happiness of the society as well. Abortion and widespread contraception have removed procreation from sex and thus the traditionally largest impetus to refrain from extramarital sex has been removed. Now there is no reason to restrain ourselves and thus our society is significantly less virtuous. The consequences are just now beginning to emerge, but a society that has such a libertine lifestyle shouldn't last very long.

Just my 2 cents for now...

I'm starting hear the word "Responsibilty" here. We hold 16 and 17 year olds responsible for forcible sexual conduct, why not hold them responsible for consensual sexual conduct? A natural result of sexual conduct is the possibility of becoming pregnant. We expect teenagers to operate a car responsible, why not in sexual situations? Children unwanted? Or just not timed conveniently? Remember outside of abstinence, you have to do something unnatural to prevent a pregnancy. We expect people to act responsibly. Have insurance when they drive, even 16 year olds.

Lets talk about the female should be able to decide about what she does with her body. Lets ask, should a male get to use sterolds? Open this up a little more. Consume drugs? It's all about people's rights to do with his or her body what they want, right? And if we do things that are harmful, who should pay? We, several years ago, got pregnancy to be treated like any other "illness" for insurance purposes. What if this behavior is irresponsible, as in sterold or drug use, OR sexual conduct?

Abortion for the protection of the mother's life, or in case of a rape or incest. I'm okay with. Abortion for irresponsible behavior as a convenient afteraction birth control. No way. Where is the responsibilty? For those children, who have become involved in sexual conduct, that conduct is illegal. Remedies should be available, and penalties should be warranted.

You are responsible for what you do to your body. Overindulge, get drunk, sexual conduct, take sterolds. Act responsibly, do the right thing. Everybody knows there is protection available for prevention of pregnancy. Use it.

Be responsible!

I don't know anyone who has $300-400 per procedure to use abortion as birth control. I don't know anyone, with the exception of one girl who CANNOT be pregnant for health reasons, who is willing to deal with the recuperation, physical and emotional, on a regular basis as birth control. I know several people who have had abortions, and the procedure was stressful, and they do not wish to do it again. They WERE responsible. They DID take precautions. But every young woman thought it out, agonized, and ultimately decided what to do. And they made the right choice for them. It was not up to me, Peter, Greg, Andrew, or anyone else. It is not up to us to dictate someone else's choice in this matter.

We each contribute our own two cents to matters that we think impact society around us. The purely libertarian argument that we each claim our own responsibility for our own actions is a dubious claim to make considering the applicability of such logic to other decisions.

I would assume, for instance, that everyone who took crack had thought through the possible repurcussions, and their decision was their right.

I would assume, for instance, that every corporate CEO took into account the effects of their decisions and hence should be allowed to live unregulated.

I would assume, for instance, that everyone who purhcases a defective good or service had contemplated the effects of their purchase and should not bother seeking recompense due to the responsibility they assumed with their purchase.

But, of course, we don't. We only want to apply that standard when it fits our need. There's a societal problem when you have an unborn child dying without any requirement for consideration of its well being. As Andrew highlights, with no negative consequence, things don't improve. That Planned Parent (if memory serves correct) would peddle shirts proclaiming pride of an abortion laughs in the face of what even many pro-choice types see as amoral. We place a negative consequence for the items listed above and that puts a serious check on their abuse. Nothing really confusing about that.

You claim that nobody - NOBODY - has a $300/400 procedure done for methods of birth control. Aside from offering Margaret Cho's famous example as Exhibit A in rebuttal, I'll offer Guttmacher Inst. numbers for a more thorough treatment.

The two biggest reasons for terminating a pregnancy: inadequate finances (21%) and not ready for responsibility (21%) [ed. note - multiple reasons were allowed on this question]. That sounds like a lot of room to work with on some alternative options ... offering more means for mothers to accept help in raising a child, for instance. Those are significantly higher numbers than the single digits that describe the exceptions that most favor and are reflective of the use of an abortion as a form of birth control (unless I believe that the factors have changed for the mother within a few months).

That's also a lot of people to be speaking on behalf of when you characterize the case as universally as you do.

So why the big deal on sterolds? Personal choice, only effects the consumers body. They took multiple precautions? Two or more types of BC? Or did it break? The consequences of abortion are good. If someone did not have bad feeling, they'd be without a heart. How about adoption? Don't you know that this practice has reduced the value of a person's life down to $300 to $400 dollars. Why do you think murder rates are where they are? The value of life, waste them. Only 3 to 4 hundred dollars, cheap. Personal choice, rights? Sterold use, drug use, my body, my choice?

Adoption

I'm also surprised that the insurance industry has been able to keep abortion from being covered under group coverage. Why isn't it?