The Crusty Curmudgeon is presenting excerpts of a debate on abortion that was recently held at Carleton University. The presentation of the pro-abortion lady sparked a few thoughts.
Jeanette Doucet said:
Making abortion illegal did not deter women from seeking abortions.
That simply is not true. The fact that abortion was illegal and relatively unaccessible meant that we did not have an abortion rate of 30 abortions per 100 pregnancies. In 1971, the abortion rate was 10 per 100 pregnancies. What that tells me is that the legality of abortion definitively had an effect on the abortion rate.
Ms. Doucet also said:
just drove the practice underground, into the "dark, unsanitary corners of our society" [her phrase].
That's also mostly untrue. Illegal abortions were usually performed by licensed physicians who did the job on the side.
Scott, the Crusty Curmudgeon, observed:
Tracy and Jeannette didn't deal with the issue of human personhood,
Of course not. They know they can't win on this point. If unborn children are people, then abortion should be illegal; if they aren't, then they alienate a good number of Canadians who treat their own unborn children as people.
Really, the title of the debate should be: should unborn children have rights. That would force the feminists to state their case for discriminating against unborn children.
