Thursday, March 09, 2006
Abortion in Texas
A study indicates that a Texas law requiring parental notification (and a delay thereafter) before girls under 18 can have an abortion has lowered abortion rates. And raised birthrates. Guess which part you'll be hearing spouted off by the wingnuts?
The thing about this kind of study is that they very explicitly can only find good news for the pro-life folks. It did not measure illegal (read: "most likely unsafe") abortions, or the effects on the young girls and their families who had unwanted kids. Let alone examine the effects of being unwanted on the kids themselves.
Abortions are pretty obviously a bad thing; I'm all for reducing the number of abortions people have. The thing is, that to really do that, you have to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and the only realistic way of doing that is to have honest, reality-based education about How Things Work. Faith-based sex ed doesn't work. I wonder if this lesson will ever penetrate?
The thing about this kind of study is that they very explicitly can only find good news for the pro-life folks. It did not measure illegal (read: "most likely unsafe") abortions, or the effects on the young girls and their families who had unwanted kids. Let alone examine the effects of being unwanted on the kids themselves.
Abortions are pretty obviously a bad thing; I'm all for reducing the number of abortions people have. The thing is, that to really do that, you have to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and the only realistic way of doing that is to have honest, reality-based education about How Things Work. Faith-based sex ed doesn't work. I wonder if this lesson will ever penetrate?
