commentaries

Re: "[A] growing majority of Americans believe that abortion is not the right answer." That, Dr. Calvin, depends on the question. If the question is "Should the President 'unapologetically support publicly funded abortion without restrictions'?" the answer will be different than if the question is "Who should make a woman's reproductive healthcare decisions"?

By the way, your inflammatory version of the President's position on a woman's right to freedom of conscience could easily be matched by describing the anti-woman legislation proposed and passed in 27 states with Republican legislative majorities.

A still larger majority of Americans believe that the best policies are to protect women's health, to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, and to trust that women are capable of making good choices.

For 40 years abortion advocates have spun phrases, twisted definitions, and misrepresented reality in hope to prove wrong Abraham Lincoln's famous quote, "You can fool some of the people all of the time..., but you can not fool all of the people all of the time". Abortion advocates will have to work all that much harder in the coming years to convince the public not to contemplate the obvious: abortion snuffs out of an innocent, vulnerable life by means of monstrous, brutal butchery. Good luck, abortion advocates, proving Lincoln wrong!

Roe v Wade was more about a women having the right to say what happens to her body, not a group of men saying to her what is right and what is wrong. There are already enough people who would like to turn the clock back to 1863 in terms of freedoms for all of us, let alone 1963. If I recall rightly, it was the work of MLK who, through his and others hard sacrifices that started to wake Americans up about how primitive we were in our hatreds and biases. Now we have lawmakers that want to bring back those bleak days, wrongly thinking they are more enlightened to the world, when in reality, they are bringing darkness back into our hearts.

There is a particular party (GOP) that not only wants to end the ability to get a "safe" abortion but also the ability to get contraceptives so that unwanted pregnacies do not happen. This totally taking away the right of women to "control" their own bodies and the ability to decide when they can afford a child or not, etc.

Where do you get the figure that 30 percent of all women have had abortions? The CDC reports that in 2009 the abortion rate also dropped, from 15.9 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age to 15.1 abortions per 1,000 women. That would indicate less than 2 percent of American women have had abortions. Just wondering...

..."As the 40th anniversary of Roe is celebrated and lamented, I am optimistic, because a growing majority of Americans believe that abortion is not the right answer."...********************************** ********************************************* As if it were the their decision to make.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the CDC number indicates number of abortions performed per year, not the cumulative total. That means that 15.1 women per 1,000, or 1.51% of women, had an abortion in 2009. They would then have to be added to the number of women who had an abortion in 2008, 2007, etc, all the way back. The 30% number includes women who have ever had an abortion. So, if you add up all of the women who have ever, at any point in their lives, had an abortion, that number would be 30%.

The last thing I expect from the GOP is any practical solution to the conditions that lead to unwanted pregnancies and the follow up for those who decide to have their babies. They are excellent scolds, because scolding is cheap. When it comes to effective sex ed and funding anything at all that might keep kids without dads out of homeless shelters, well - they'll have none of that. Better to scold, finger point, and pontificate about values and responsibility.

In terms of abortion opponents like redjupiter in this thread I will use the words of retired Republican Senator Alan Simpson to rebut the over-emotional, mostly rhetoric instead of fact-based so-called 'pro-life' position; 'Who the hell is for abortion? I don’t know anybody running around with a sign that says, 'Have an abortion! They’re wonderful!' They’re hideous, but they’re a deeply intimate and personal decision, and I don’t think men legislators should even vote on the issue.'