abortion and education.

This is Part Three. Part One is here.

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I tend to not talk about abortion because I’m a man. As a man, it seems weird to talk about an idea that I can not fully comprehend and will never be able to (carrying a baby). This is why, side note, it’s very easy for men to get on high horses about abortion - and why priests, historically, often made sexual “sins” the big “sins” because they were “celibate” and it was easy to get on a high horse about them. (Side note: before we found out about the issues with boys.)

But, I’m going to talk abut abortion for a second, because it’s apparently leading the charge in reasons people vote for Trump. Yes, that Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and save the country again. This is what people say.

The thing is, I don’t think Republicans actually give a damn about actual abortions.

Wait, real quick, let’s address “pro-life”. It’s been said many times but just be clear pro-life is pro-bull-shit. Pro-life believers are not actually pro most of the things that life entrails. Pro-life is more than pro-not-having-abortions. Pro-life is pro-healthcare, pro-justice reform, pro-childcare, pro-education, pro-climate-change - it’s pro all the things that not only make up life but can cause it to be really hard for some people. For this reason, it seems Democrats are generally far more “pro life” than Republicans. 

But, let’s come back to abortion. Who wants more abortions? No one I know of. I’ve never heard anyone on any medium say that we want more abortion procedures as a country.

All normal people want less abortions. 

Even Democrats. 

Abortion generally goes down under Democrat presidents more than Republican presidents. Democrats, I think, know there is a much better solution to abortion than a law banning it- see Pakistan where they have one of the most strict abortion laws in the world and one of the highest rates as well as most countries where it’s restricted.

What does affect abortion is birth control and comprehensive sex education. (We’re back to birth control?) See the Netherlands (one of the lowest abortion rates in the world.) The strange thing is that I see lots of Trump supporters protesting sex education AND abortion! In polls, Republicans don't care about implementing sex education but they do care about abortion - this seems so strange to me. It’s like not caring about soap but caring about the passing of germs.

Right now in the United States, I’ll let Peggy Orenstein tell us what kind of sex ed we have.

“Well, right this minute, American students are learning that HIV can be spread through sweat or tears, that women who have sex before marriage are like chewed pieces of gum or used pieces of tape or cups full of spit (i.e., no one will want them), that boys should seek out “good girls” who say no to sex, that condoms are useless against HIV a third of the time, that the pill has an 80 percent failure rate, that abortion causes cancer. I fear for those young people, I do, and for good reason: despite a federal investment in abstinence-only education to date of over two billion dollars (and counting), teenagers exposed to its lessons have been found to neither significantly delay intercourse compared to others nor have fewer partners; they do, however, have higher rates of pregnancy and STDs. Equally concerning, while pleasure-based sexuality education that includes practicing refusal skills has been found to reduce rates of assault, abstinence-only programs have not.” - Peggy Orenstein Girls & Sex

Despite all of this, abortion rates are still doing down in the U.S. and have been for a while - even while it’s legal and with terrible sex education to boot.

Because, again, no one wants more abortions. And because people are being better educated about sex (thank god), as well as finding better access to brith control, despite the people who don’t want them to have either. Well, there is also this whole sex recession we’re in which is a whole other problem and probably one we should be addressing and trying to find solutions for way more than abortion. You can read the amazing article here.

I honestly really do try to understand this whole abortion argument and I honestly can’t. But I think it has to do a lot with Christianity - the next topic.