Do women who have an abortion have fewer kids? Is there a significant difference in the population due to abortions? Just because a woman has an abortion doesn't mean she won't have kids later. If fact, it's also possible women who have abortions might have more children later in life. Raising an unexpected child might give a false sense of parenting and deter people from having as many children.
Either way, it's not obvious that population is significantly affected due to abortions.
The abortion debate has evolved into another of the all-or-nothing, uncompromising dialogues that are so prevalent across most of Western Civ these days. Most Americans support keeping access to abortions open for women of all colors. Many of us, including me, want fetal age to be considered as a limiting factor on abortion access. I can see how a woman could be in the third trimester of a pregnancy before she seeks out an abortion, but unless there is a risk to her physical health in going through the remainder of the pregnancy and birth, I don't think that she should be able to get an abortion at that point.
In the past midterms I voted for an independent candidate who lost the state governorship, solely because the Republican candidate has a record of making all-or-nothing anti-choice statements. I talked to a number of other women voters who did the same, after struggling with the decision for months leading up to the election. The Republican candidate stopped talking about her extreme position on abortion while she was campaigning, but didn't fool anybody I know. Indeed, we saw that as soon as Roe v. Wade was overturned by SCOTUS, Republican politicians around the country began campaigning on "no abortions, no exceptions" platforms, and Republican legislatures started passing total abortion bans.
Until the Republican Party moderates their anti-choice positions, they will lose a large segment of women voters and their allies. They will also lose voters who truly believe in the separation of church and state. Both the so-called left and the so-called right are now wedded to anti-democratic religions, and neither party can afford to lose the support of its religious fundamentalists. The majority of Americans disagree with both of the two all-or-nothing positions on abortion rights, and for many women this is an important enough issue to reject the extreme views of both political parties.
My final comment is that I find it absurd that most of the men who identify as Republicans now claim to be morally opposed to abortion. Since when?! So many Americans will say anything to make themselves look like saints! Even Trump!! Give me a break!
I didn't argue that abortion was "okay." That's a shallow and casual word for something that's not morally blameless and that generally is emotionally miserable. I do think abortion should be legal. The reason it was legalized in the first place was the high incidence of illegal abortions even at great medical risk. Sinful it may well be, but nobody in the legislative realm is in a position to cast the first stone.
Your argument about infanticide isn't comparable. Your hypothetical overtired mother is acting on impulse. Nobody has an abortion on impulse.
Dr. Loury I'm interested in the following questions, which I think are really uncomfortable: what is the appropriate relationship between freedom and responsibility?
Slaves are not free, and are not responsible for feeding and housing themselves. I'm guessing that in Exodus there were probably some guys wandering in the desert thinking that they had it better back in Egypt.
We live in a society in which women are free. To what extent should they be responsible for their choice in sexual partners and activities?
If you get a dog, should the government feed it? If you buy a house, should the government mow your lawn? If you choose to have sex with someone who turns out to be undependable when pregnancy occurs...
There is some element of moral hazard here. When banks lend out money irresponsibly, government bailouts set a clear incentive to continue behaving irresponsibly; the gains are privatized and the losses are socialized.
There are other cultures that have existed, maybe do exist now, in which women are NOT free to choose their partners, and NOT free to engage in the amount or variety of sex that they might choose. To what extent should women be expected to be responsible for the decisions that they make? Are women agents or not?
The above paragraph sounds like the start of the "she shouldn't have dressed that way" or "she shouldn't have been in that neighborhood" type of arguments we've heard for years.
These are tough questions that involve a lot of sacred cows. I love that you always play devil's advocate; if there's an argument for taking away the sexual freedom of women, grounded in their inability to be responsible with it, I want to hear it.
I also want to be very clear that that is NOT my opinion! But a full discussion requires listening to even the most repugnant of viewpoints, if for no other purpose than to allow reason to defeat them in plain view.
"Now all of a sudden, every black politician and every politician on the left is saying, “If Roe is struck down, this will have a disproportionate impact on poor black women,” which means they think it is a more fitting fate for a child to be killed in utero than to be born to a poor black woman."
Yeah, maybe it is. And take out the 'black', because that applies to all poor women. They want an abortion because they may already have children and whether they do or they don't, they probably can't afford another mouth to feed. And yeah, when you look at how unwanted children are often horribly abused, yeah, suddenly birth looks like a fate worse than death.
I remember reading a story many years ago about a woman (can't remember her colour) who got arrested because she let one of her children starve to death. She had eight, I can't remember if this was the eighth or the ninth. She just left her in her crib and let her starve to death. I can't remember if the father was around. She told the cops she "didn't want her, didn't love her." And I wondered, What's worse? Slowly starving to death, unloved and unattended in your crib, or being taken from the womb when you have no consciousness to know what they're doing?
Where's the father in all this? Will he be around to take care of and raise his sperm donation? Will he be abusive? I don't care WHAT colour the parties are. Did Daddy know how to use a condom? Did she tell him "No condom, no whoopie"? If you want to keep it black, six million mothers last year may want to know where the sperm donor is (or perhaps not). I'm sure at least some of those are single fathers, and maybe two dozen of those fatherless kids are the work of Elon Musk, Nick Cannon and Herschel Walker. But you get my point. Every child a WANTED child. Yeah, there are worse fates than getting aborted. Just ask all the kids who were horribly abused and neglected by fucked-up parents who died in agony because no one loved them, no one wanted them.
The black community has an obesity epidemic. Something like half of black women and girls in the US are obese. Obesity causes premature puberty onset which in turn increases unplanned pregnancies. We need to stop circulating the horrible idea that fat is beautiful. It's unhealthy and stress-producing. As Shelby Steele notes, white people feel so guilty they have lost their moral confidence. It takes confidence to maintain a belief against obesity, and it's necessary.
The skeletons they so proudly stack are 1M/year high, of which 400,000 (per year) are Black souls condemned by their Relativist rationalizations. The abortion totals are 50 times greater than the entirety of infant moralities in the US (20K/yr).
If rationalization of wholesale genocide doesn't qualify as evil, it's hard to fathom if anything would ever be considered evil.
Human lives do matter. The question of the humanity of unborn children is not a religious question, it is a matter of science. Genetically what else could he/she be ? The current abortion situation is so obviously racial that a willing ignorance of reality is needed to deny the truth of genocide. I guess killing 50% of the Black births in NYC is solving the "Negro problem", but why are progressives doing it? Is the spirit of the founder of Planned Parenthood still guiding its path?
I know a little about the delays, having once volunteered with a group that made loans to women who couldn't afford abortions. Often the women hadn't even been able to afford an early abortion, and by the time they found out about the loans the pregnancy had progressed. Also, food insecurity can disrupt the menstrual cycle, lives full of crisis can make it hard to focus on anything, and denial/hoping it's not true can be a powerful force, particularly in teenage girls. When I was teaching in a community college I heard of one case where a very overweight woman with irregular periods didn't know she was pregnant until she went into labor; no telling what she would have decided had she found out about the pregnancy earlier.
I also had quite a few students who had gone through with pregnancies because they didn't believe in abortion, and were in school to become able to support the children; one got pregnant a second time while she was a student, and with great anguish had an abortion. One male student wrote a paper in praise of his girlfriend, who had decided to have the baby and thus inspired him to stop doing drugs and get a job and make himself into a responsible father. Would that there were more like him.
The Blacks are essential to the Democratic Party as their most dedicated voters, but even the Democrats don't want them reproducing without limits. Too much of anything, even something essential, is not necessarily a good thing. Abortion is necessary to keep the percentage of Blacks stable over time.
I believe it’s relevant that crime in the United States peaked in the early 1990’s and has decreased steadily (excepting the COVID blip in ‘20-‘21) since. The relation to the abortion debate? The peak years for criminal behavior is ages 20-25. What happened 20 years before the early ‘90’s? Roe v. Wade. By 1973 abortion was available almost everywhere. Because of that all women were making an implicit choice to HAVE the baby if they did not get an abortion. Even among poor women, their children were desired, even if that choice condemned them to being poor the rest of their lives. I believe that deep resentment of many children born before Roe v. Wade contributed to crime as a byproduct of “You ruined my whole life!” perhaps the most damaging statement any child can hear. I have friends, born to poor single mothers before abortion was available, who heard exactly those bitter words, and the harm never entirely lifted. Yes, there are still bitter, damaged mothers, but far fewer because of the free choice after Roe v. Wade to have that inconvenient child.
Yes they matter. Preserving life is important. Adoption should be considered as the primary solution for Women who prefer to not raise a child. Pause for a moment, consider the damage upon our whole species due to the fact that Aborting a human is accepted, viciously supported, advertised on bill boards, etc.
Aborting a fellow human being, knowing that at some level they “feel” the sensation of being aborted in a situation where previously they were all warm and snuggled in for the journey. Where is our Empathy, our compassion, our love for life ?
Do women who have an abortion have fewer kids? Is there a significant difference in the population due to abortions? Just because a woman has an abortion doesn't mean she won't have kids later. If fact, it's also possible women who have abortions might have more children later in life. Raising an unexpected child might give a false sense of parenting and deter people from having as many children.
Either way, it's not obvious that population is significantly affected due to abortions.
The abortion debate has evolved into another of the all-or-nothing, uncompromising dialogues that are so prevalent across most of Western Civ these days. Most Americans support keeping access to abortions open for women of all colors. Many of us, including me, want fetal age to be considered as a limiting factor on abortion access. I can see how a woman could be in the third trimester of a pregnancy before she seeks out an abortion, but unless there is a risk to her physical health in going through the remainder of the pregnancy and birth, I don't think that she should be able to get an abortion at that point.
In the past midterms I voted for an independent candidate who lost the state governorship, solely because the Republican candidate has a record of making all-or-nothing anti-choice statements. I talked to a number of other women voters who did the same, after struggling with the decision for months leading up to the election. The Republican candidate stopped talking about her extreme position on abortion while she was campaigning, but didn't fool anybody I know. Indeed, we saw that as soon as Roe v. Wade was overturned by SCOTUS, Republican politicians around the country began campaigning on "no abortions, no exceptions" platforms, and Republican legislatures started passing total abortion bans.
Until the Republican Party moderates their anti-choice positions, they will lose a large segment of women voters and their allies. They will also lose voters who truly believe in the separation of church and state. Both the so-called left and the so-called right are now wedded to anti-democratic religions, and neither party can afford to lose the support of its religious fundamentalists. The majority of Americans disagree with both of the two all-or-nothing positions on abortion rights, and for many women this is an important enough issue to reject the extreme views of both political parties.
My final comment is that I find it absurd that most of the men who identify as Republicans now claim to be morally opposed to abortion. Since when?! So many Americans will say anything to make themselves look like saints! Even Trump!! Give me a break!
I didn't argue that abortion was "okay." That's a shallow and casual word for something that's not morally blameless and that generally is emotionally miserable. I do think abortion should be legal. The reason it was legalized in the first place was the high incidence of illegal abortions even at great medical risk. Sinful it may well be, but nobody in the legislative realm is in a position to cast the first stone.
Your argument about infanticide isn't comparable. Your hypothetical overtired mother is acting on impulse. Nobody has an abortion on impulse.
I would happily debate Delano Squires any time, any place.
A truly remarkable conversation. Mr Squires’ perspective is wonderfully refreshing. Please have him back soon for another conversation.
Dr. Loury I'm interested in the following questions, which I think are really uncomfortable: what is the appropriate relationship between freedom and responsibility?
Slaves are not free, and are not responsible for feeding and housing themselves. I'm guessing that in Exodus there were probably some guys wandering in the desert thinking that they had it better back in Egypt.
We live in a society in which women are free. To what extent should they be responsible for their choice in sexual partners and activities?
If you get a dog, should the government feed it? If you buy a house, should the government mow your lawn? If you choose to have sex with someone who turns out to be undependable when pregnancy occurs...
There is some element of moral hazard here. When banks lend out money irresponsibly, government bailouts set a clear incentive to continue behaving irresponsibly; the gains are privatized and the losses are socialized.
There are other cultures that have existed, maybe do exist now, in which women are NOT free to choose their partners, and NOT free to engage in the amount or variety of sex that they might choose. To what extent should women be expected to be responsible for the decisions that they make? Are women agents or not?
The above paragraph sounds like the start of the "she shouldn't have dressed that way" or "she shouldn't have been in that neighborhood" type of arguments we've heard for years.
These are tough questions that involve a lot of sacred cows. I love that you always play devil's advocate; if there's an argument for taking away the sexual freedom of women, grounded in their inability to be responsible with it, I want to hear it.
I also want to be very clear that that is NOT my opinion! But a full discussion requires listening to even the most repugnant of viewpoints, if for no other purpose than to allow reason to defeat them in plain view.
Loved the discussion as always.
"Now all of a sudden, every black politician and every politician on the left is saying, “If Roe is struck down, this will have a disproportionate impact on poor black women,” which means they think it is a more fitting fate for a child to be killed in utero than to be born to a poor black woman."
Yeah, maybe it is. And take out the 'black', because that applies to all poor women. They want an abortion because they may already have children and whether they do or they don't, they probably can't afford another mouth to feed. And yeah, when you look at how unwanted children are often horribly abused, yeah, suddenly birth looks like a fate worse than death.
I remember reading a story many years ago about a woman (can't remember her colour) who got arrested because she let one of her children starve to death. She had eight, I can't remember if this was the eighth or the ninth. She just left her in her crib and let her starve to death. I can't remember if the father was around. She told the cops she "didn't want her, didn't love her." And I wondered, What's worse? Slowly starving to death, unloved and unattended in your crib, or being taken from the womb when you have no consciousness to know what they're doing?
Where's the father in all this? Will he be around to take care of and raise his sperm donation? Will he be abusive? I don't care WHAT colour the parties are. Did Daddy know how to use a condom? Did she tell him "No condom, no whoopie"? If you want to keep it black, six million mothers last year may want to know where the sperm donor is (or perhaps not). I'm sure at least some of those are single fathers, and maybe two dozen of those fatherless kids are the work of Elon Musk, Nick Cannon and Herschel Walker. But you get my point. Every child a WANTED child. Yeah, there are worse fates than getting aborted. Just ask all the kids who were horribly abused and neglected by fucked-up parents who died in agony because no one loved them, no one wanted them.
The black community has an obesity epidemic. Something like half of black women and girls in the US are obese. Obesity causes premature puberty onset which in turn increases unplanned pregnancies. We need to stop circulating the horrible idea that fat is beautiful. It's unhealthy and stress-producing. As Shelby Steele notes, white people feel so guilty they have lost their moral confidence. It takes confidence to maintain a belief against obesity, and it's necessary.
And as Dr. Carol Swain points out, abortion is where the black community loses its voting power...voter suppression.
The skeletons they so proudly stack are 1M/year high, of which 400,000 (per year) are Black souls condemned by their Relativist rationalizations. The abortion totals are 50 times greater than the entirety of infant moralities in the US (20K/yr).
If rationalization of wholesale genocide doesn't qualify as evil, it's hard to fathom if anything would ever be considered evil.
Human lives do matter. The question of the humanity of unborn children is not a religious question, it is a matter of science. Genetically what else could he/she be ? The current abortion situation is so obviously racial that a willing ignorance of reality is needed to deny the truth of genocide. I guess killing 50% of the Black births in NYC is solving the "Negro problem", but why are progressives doing it? Is the spirit of the founder of Planned Parenthood still guiding its path?
Even-handed mature discussion. Good points from Mr. Squires. Thank you.
I know a little about the delays, having once volunteered with a group that made loans to women who couldn't afford abortions. Often the women hadn't even been able to afford an early abortion, and by the time they found out about the loans the pregnancy had progressed. Also, food insecurity can disrupt the menstrual cycle, lives full of crisis can make it hard to focus on anything, and denial/hoping it's not true can be a powerful force, particularly in teenage girls. When I was teaching in a community college I heard of one case where a very overweight woman with irregular periods didn't know she was pregnant until she went into labor; no telling what she would have decided had she found out about the pregnancy earlier.
I also had quite a few students who had gone through with pregnancies because they didn't believe in abortion, and were in school to become able to support the children; one got pregnant a second time while she was a student, and with great anguish had an abortion. One male student wrote a paper in praise of his girlfriend, who had decided to have the baby and thus inspired him to stop doing drugs and get a job and make himself into a responsible father. Would that there were more like him.
The Blacks are essential to the Democratic Party as their most dedicated voters, but even the Democrats don't want them reproducing without limits. Too much of anything, even something essential, is not necessarily a good thing. Abortion is necessary to keep the percentage of Blacks stable over time.
I believe it’s relevant that crime in the United States peaked in the early 1990’s and has decreased steadily (excepting the COVID blip in ‘20-‘21) since. The relation to the abortion debate? The peak years for criminal behavior is ages 20-25. What happened 20 years before the early ‘90’s? Roe v. Wade. By 1973 abortion was available almost everywhere. Because of that all women were making an implicit choice to HAVE the baby if they did not get an abortion. Even among poor women, their children were desired, even if that choice condemned them to being poor the rest of their lives. I believe that deep resentment of many children born before Roe v. Wade contributed to crime as a byproduct of “You ruined my whole life!” perhaps the most damaging statement any child can hear. I have friends, born to poor single mothers before abortion was available, who heard exactly those bitter words, and the harm never entirely lifted. Yes, there are still bitter, damaged mothers, but far fewer because of the free choice after Roe v. Wade to have that inconvenient child.
Yes they matter. Preserving life is important. Adoption should be considered as the primary solution for Women who prefer to not raise a child. Pause for a moment, consider the damage upon our whole species due to the fact that Aborting a human is accepted, viciously supported, advertised on bill boards, etc.
Aborting a fellow human being, knowing that at some level they “feel” the sensation of being aborted in a situation where previously they were all warm and snuggled in for the journey. Where is our Empathy, our compassion, our love for life ?
Yes, it matters if we choose to abort babies.