Abortion is bad for women.

"Unfortunately, for many women, it's just not true. That's why tens of thousands of women who thought it was a good idea at the time, now regret their abortions." Although what you say could be true, I am still not convinced that the number of women who have an abortion -- and that will later regret it -- is significantly high when compared to all abortions. In addition, it is conceivable that although they regret their decision, they did the best thing at hand. "It seems like you are arguing that women who have abortions are not prepared to be parents and if they had a baby, they would be worse off psychologically than if they had a baby." You are right, I did give that impression. However, I also include parents who already have children and their economic condition is simply not fit to support another child. I know a person that already had two children and when she got pregnant, she was under constant psychological suffering. She told me that when she was shopping at the supermarket she wouldn't stop panicking about the fact that she couldn't support the baby if she had it. Her psychological problem was accentuated by the fact that abortions were illegal at the time in Portugal, the country she resided in (they were, however, recently legalized). She also told me that she was finally able to get relief only when she went to Spain, where abortion was legal, and was able to get one at a clinic. I also know that now she & her family have become pretty affluent, which may not have happened if she did not have the abortion. Another psychological issue with abortion is society's failure to fully embrace abortion as a legitimate practice. Religion and the issue of abortion not being "natural" are certainly driving forces of opposition to the practice. Thus, society causes uncertainty in the mind of the woman regarding her decision to not have her baby. If society fully embraced the decision of women who decided to have an abortion, the psychological problems associated with it would drop drastically. My point is that the people who say that abortion is bad for women are just making it psychologically worse for the women who have them. Of course, it is ironic how one can infer that this includes you, but the purpose of my point is not attack you personally in any way. (I just hope it is crystal clear that this merely coincides with my point.) :) Now let us move on to your argument about dealing with pregnancy in a healthy way. Don't we both know that there are many appalling cases of irresponsible mothers? Examples of what I'm talking about include leaving kids selling contraband (forms of which I leave up to the reader's imagination) on the street, or a mother with 8 kids on a salary of 30k! I think that you conveniently overlooked this unfortunate side of pregnancy when you talk about the ones that turn out "healthy." In addition, your argument can not only be used to advocate abortion. It can also be used to advocate that higher rates of pregnancy are good. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but if we want higher rates of pregnancy, why would we advocate for more unplanned pregnancies as opposed to advocating for more planned pregnancies? You write "However, it is highly likely that the abortion and many of the break ups are related events when there is no other single factor with sufficient explanatory power" Although I'm a bit confused with this statement, I'll just assume (from what I could understand) that what you mean is that the abortion may have been a direct cause for the break-up (please correct me if I misunderstood). Having said that, I do not see why this is "highly likely." Franke's book does show that there is a high break-up rate and that, generally, whenever the boyfriend threatens to leave if she doesn't get an abortion, he leaves even if she does get it anyway. However, this still does not explain why abortion was a direct cause for the break-up as opposed to both abortion & break-up being the effect of an already bad relationship. You would actually think that if a boyfriend makes such a kind of threat instead of being supportive, the relationship was a bad one already. In case I personally got a woman pregnant, I realize that we are both responsible for that, not just her! If she chose to have the baby (which is, ultimately, her decision,) even though I would like her to get an abortion, I have no other choice than be supportive because I am partly responsible for the pregnancy. That is what makes a responsible boyfriend, and a good relationship. You can't possibly expect a relationship to last long if the boyfriend is the kind of guy that will not be supportive of his partner's decision, whichever that is. This also explains why I do not see why abortion being a direct cause of break-ups is "highly likely." If a relationship is not very stable, some other problem would have caused the break-up anyway. "While tens of thousands of women have publicly testified that they regret their abortions, I don't know anyone who regrets having her baby." This, again, brings up society. Society, if anything, pushes women into regretting their decision to have an abortion. On the other hand, it is not very socially acceptable to say that you regret having a baby, added to the fact that their baby is alive. In addition, the opposite of regretting an abortion is not just regretting having a baby. It is regretting having a baby at some point in their life. Nevertheless, just because you haven't heard of any cases where the mother says that they regret having a baby, this does not mean that they do not exist. It did not take me long to find a direct source supporting my point: http://www.associatedcontent.com... I see that there is a lack of tangible evidence to support your third point, and I understand the various possible reasons for why this could be. However, I am unable to concede your point since I do need evidence. Let us move on to your fourth point and to the issue of having the option. Let me first say that I completely understand what you mean by why my question illustrates what you claim is "your point." Nevertheless, I think that there is more to the point you are making than what you say there is. You cannot expect me to assume that by "abortion is bad" you only mean that it has cons. It is reasonably assumed that by "abortion is bad" you mean that abortion is bad in relation to some alternative, because the position a woman considering abortion is in is by default already unfavorable. This turns the dilemma into an issue of picking "the lesser of two evils". In the scope of the decision, picking the lesser of two evils is something that is good (picking the worse of two evils being bad). Since having the option for abortion allows for picking the lesser of two evils, abortion is therefore good. You do say that "Usually, when we talk about choice positively, we are talking about a choice between good options." But sometimes we have to make a choice between bad options.