Yes, there is!

And fifty percent of it could keep his pants zipped.

But one hundred percent of the burden of unplanned pregnancy falls on one party.

If, as you say, abortion is being used as birth control, this means we need better birth control methods, education, and financing. How many people do you know who would repeatedly choose a surgical procedure over a simple daily pill or an implant? Why do so few health plans include birth control pills and Norplant implants in their packages?

What's your opinion of teaching birth control in sex ed classes in junior high school? What do you think of assertiveness training ("You're allowed to say no and this is how you do it") for girls and sensitivity seminars ("No means no") for boys in those classes? Many kids don't know this stuff and don't get it from home. (We had strenuous opposition to this on the grounds of teaching immorality. One of the opponents to implementing such curricula already had two grandchildren born to his single high-school-age daughters. Go figure.)

Pregnancy isn't "an inconvenience". It's covered under major medical. It is an arduous imposition on a woman, physically, emotionally, and financially. It used to cost a woman her job. Now it might only cost her her career. It can still cost her her health, and infrequently her life.

It's a testimony to the character of women that so many of us will take these risks to bear children. Some of us then become dependent and incomeless (and pensionless) to raise them. Those who go back to work face wrenching emotional and financial situations involving good quality child care that doesn't eat all their earnings, but at least they have a shot at a retirement nest egg. Those who put their children up for adoption are seldom praised or recognized except in Dear Abby's Mothers' Day column, although they continue to worry, mourn and wonder about their absent babies.

I know half a dozen people who have shared their decision to abort with me. It wasn't easy for any of them. Only one of them regrets it, and she was pressured -- beaten, actually -- into it by her then-boyfriend. None have repeated the experience.

The Australia situation sounds bizarre, but I have heard of cases in which a multiple birth was untenable for the mother's health, and so one or more of the fetuses were aborted.

I find it alternately sad and infuriating that the discussion frames the fetus, a group of newly-organized cells without the physical capacity for thought and a capacity for pain that might equal a caterpillar's, as "the poor baby", and the mother, a fully-realized human being with a complicated life and relationships to other human beings, as "that bitch".

Men should be women for 13 months: the first month to experience the menstrual cycle and be courted, and then to be gotten pregnant (and maybe enjoy the process, but no guarantees), give birth, and nurse. Perhaps the light would then dawn. "Take a pill? Oh, I think I'd rather have anesthesia, have a bunch of strangers invade my body, and bleed and cramp for a while, and maybe even get an infection!" is not fun, exciting (except in a harrowing way) or desirable.

I appreciate your libertarian positions. I wish you understood women. ;)

Regards--
Mary Anne

PS-- Yes, people with Downs are frequently happy, even including the health problems associated with the syndrome. People with schizophrenia are not happy, which is where I was going. Other genetic anomalies provoke very serious quality of life issues for the individual affected, not just a problem of family adjustment to diminished expectations.