Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Sometimes I wonder about the people in Arizona.....

For some reason of late they've been passing strange and stupid laws. The one I read about today where they want to make sure women don't abort fetus' because of gender or race.

I didn't realize that Arizona was part of China, where there is a large preference for male infants and where for a long time, they were only allowed 1 child, so if it was female they would want to abort. As far as I know neither the US or the state of Arizona have restrictions on how many children someone has and really I seriously doubt there is hordes of women aborting specifically daughters.  I suspect the percentage of people who abort because they aren't getting the baby they want is very small. Less then 5%

I'm sure the majority of first term abortions are because women found themselves pregnant. They know little or nothing about the baby they are carrying and have been freaking out over the pregnancy since the day they were 'late'.  They aren't choosing a designer baby, they are choosing not to have a child at that point and nothing more. If statistics show more females then males are being aborted, perhaps they should find out how many of the people who aborted their baby even knew the gender of the baby.

As for race bias, well statistics sometimes don't mean much. It's easy to say, that in a town most of the abortions are of blacks or Hispanics, and that people are being racist. But if that town only has a black or Hispanic population, it makes total sense that most of the aborted fetus will be from those racial backgrounds.  I've never run across a woman who would abort her baby because it is from the same racial background as her.  I'm sure some exist but they certainly aren't very common.

 I'm not sure how this legislation in Arizona will work? Will you need to apply in front of a committee before you're allowed to have an abortion in Arizona, and will you need to get all sorts of needless tests done to prove that you aren't aborting for racial and gender reasons?  A percentage of women who abort find it is a tough decision to make..... they don't need more hurdles to cross to get an abortion in a timely fashion.  Because time is of the essence, it's the safest to abort in the first trimester.

I remember growing up in Quebec in the 70's where abortion was legal only if the life of the mother was in danger.  Those few hospitals who performed abortions had committees of at least 3 people, including doctors who would decide whether or not the application for an abortion had merit. Often if you were a teen, they would want your parents blessing, or if you were married you needed your husbands blessing. Basically few abortions ever got done. 

There was no point in applying for an abortion back then through the hospital. However there was the illegal Morgentaler clinic. You had to pay up front, but the service was really good. You were treated like a human being. No one judged you or tried to make you feel bad. You were treated like it was any other medical procedure, with the best medical care.  Not only did the clinic provide safe abortions but patients  are watched for complications before being sent home, and blood tests are done to see if medication is needed to prevent complications in future pregnancies.

I have to admit, that  Dr Henri Morgentaler is one of my hero's, as he helped make safe abortions accessible to all Canadian women.

This law which has not yet passed in Arizona scares me. Women should not have to justify why they don't want to carry a baby to term to committees.

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