[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by Fish

The point of abortion [legal or otherwise] is that it is a choice, one of many a pregnant woman must make. Her options, in order of difficulty and cost, are

• Have a baby, raise the child, and be a mother for 18+ years. This is a huge, vast, life-changing decision, constituting hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, 24-hour-a-day vigilance, and legal culpability.
• Adopt the baby out. This still requires the mother to pay to have the child, and jump through other hoops to make the baby available.
• Have an abortion. This can be the least expensive and least time-intensive solution, depending on whether the mother chooses a ... erm, home remedy or a professional, although it is the most emotionally difficult and physically painful.
• Disrupt the pregnancy early. This would be something like the so-called "morning after" pill.
• Not get pregnant. I realize this isn't an option for someone who's already pregnant, but it is an option for women, so let's consider various methods of birth control (abstinence, condoms, the Pill, etc). This is cheapest and easiest.

So many attacks on abortion start by making the bottom items on the list harder. They deprive teens of sex education, protest at teaching them about birth control in any form except abstinence, refuse to permit a morning-after pill, and place high hurdles for getting abortions. This makes no sense, because any hurdle less than 18+ years and half a million dollars is still cheaper than raising kids. Women will have abortions, period, full stop, no argument.

Why don't we instead offer a) education for not getting pregnant, b) assistance for actually having children, and c) help women choose adoption? All of these would reduce the number of abortions significantly. Instead of making anti-abortion walls higher, make the other walls lower.

QFT. Well said, Fish!

Raising the price or taxing later abortions would only incentivize them as has been said. As it is, preventive medicine is not reimbursed at anything near the rate that invasive, almost left it too late procedures in all medicine.