The presentation is quite informative. Thanks!

Some interesting numbers (I'm taking the statistics--from pro-choice advocates--as given, although I don't know the assumptions, or how they are arrived at):

Most Important Reason Given for Terminating an Unwanted Pregnancy



Inadequate finances 21%
Not ready for responsibility 21%
Woman’s life would be changed too much 16%
Problems with relationship; unmarried 12%
Too young; not mature enough 11%
Children are grown; woman has all she wants 8%
Fetus has possible health problem 3%
Woman has health problem 3%
Pregnancy caused by rape, incest 1%
Other 4%
Average number of reasons given 3.7



Notice that only 7 percent of these are for reasons of health, or rape. Most are for convenience. "Woman's life would be changed too much?" Cripes. And again, adoption would be an alternative in all these remaining cases. Oh, well.

-- Under "Reasons for Abortions After 16 Weeks from Last Menstrual Period," almost three-quarters of women said it was because they did not realize they were pregnant. That one surprised me.

-- Abortion is safer than childbirth, which I had heard, but had not seen numbers before. 0.6/100,000 for abortion, 6.6/100,000 for childbirth. Of course for the kids it's 100,000/100,000 for abortion. I don't know how many kids die in childbirth.

-- Almost a third of women who had abortions identified themselves as Catholic. That one surprised me too.

-- Some statistics are suspect, like the percentage of counties with no abortion provider. I'd bet a lot of counties don't have hospitals or clinics at all. Heck, a lot of them barely have towns. This needs to be factored into the data.

• More than 2,400 acts of violence have been reported against abortion providers since 1977, including bombings, arson, death threats, kidnapping and assaults (NARAL, 2001).

Wouldn't mind seeing this statistic with the "death threats" factored out.