SO FROM A SOLELY PRAGMATIC STANDPOINT...:

The Truth About Abortion (Eric Alterman, 6/02/09, Daily Beast)

If one merely imbibes the media coverage of the issue, one tends to get the impression that America is awash in abortions. The truth is that in most places in the United States abortions are technically legal, but they are often nearly impossible to obtain. A mere 13 percent of counties in the nation now offer the service.

The state of Mississippi, for instance, home to nearly 3 million people, has a single abortion clinic. Meanwhile, the state’s counseling provisions also require that patients be told that abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer, despite the fact that the National Cancer Institute, the British medical journal the Lancet, and faculty members of Harvard Medical School have found no such link. Mississippi is also one of only two states that require a minor to get the consent of both parents to have an abortion (though if the minor has been impregnated by her father, she needs only the consent of her mother). Not surprisingly, it boasts the highest teen birth rate in America, which continues to increase, including, particularly, girls under the age of 15.

Mississippi may appear to be an extreme example, but it is not unusual: As of the end of 2005, it came in at eighth place on the honor roll of states that “defend life,” according to the rankings of the pro-life organization Americans United for Life. Elsewhere in America, Medicaid funding has restricted abortions for low-income women for nearly 30 years, and 11 states now restrict abortion coverage in insurance plans for public employees. Forty-three states require parental consent or notice before a minor obtains an abortion. Thirty-one states demand that women receive “counseling” before an abortion, and 18 offer it only in a misleading and frequently inaccurate form designed to scare them into changing their minds. Six states insist that this “counseling” be provided in person, ensuring at least two visits to the clinic.

...one would have to say that violence against providers has worked, no?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2009 8:32 AM