From: acolman@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alison Colman)
Subject: Re: Estimates of the incidence of illegal abortions
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 01:04:05 GMT

In article <C186G7.1Kr@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () wr
tes:
>
>Has anyone considered the following hypothesis:
>
>Could it be possible that the availability of abortion may influence
>partners to be less careful with contraception?  Could it not then
>ALSO be possible that were abortion proscribed, these same partners woul

>begin being MORE careful than they were previously?  Could this not
>then reduce the 1.5 million unwanted pregnancies per year that WOULD
>have resulted in an abortion?
>
>With respect to at least my first question, Sandra Day O'Connor seems
>to think so.
>
>
>Have a nice day,
>
>
>
>Edward Simmonds- standard disclaimers  
>


(I am new to nyx and new to rn, so please bear with me if the attributions
are off, or if this article is somewhat hard to read. I'm still getting
the hang of this.) This article is in response to edward Simmons' article,
which should be above.

As to whether the availibility of abortion will influence the sexual
behavior of people in this country, it's pretty hard to predict. I know
for myself, if abortion was made illegal in Pennsylvania, it wouldn't be
much of a problem for me to go to Maryland to have an abortion. Yes, it
might make me wary about having sex -- then again, it might not make much
of a difference. I know myself I would be extremely careful about using
effective birth control, regardless of the availability of abortion. So,
sorry to disappoint you, Edward. Making abortion illegal would not make me
have sex less, personally.

Of course, this is assuming that my sexual habits are any of your
business. Which they aren't.

Going by what you said, can I reasonably assume that you are greatly in
favor of all forms of contraceptives being easily obtainable, and
inexpensive? As it stands now, some of the most effective forms of birth
control, such as Norplant, are not available to me. I am not poor enough
to get Norplant through any public assistance program, but at the same
time, I am not really able to drop $800-$900 dollars for an exam and a
Norplant implantation. And due to the nature of my employment, I don't
have health insurance right now. I would really like some of this to
change. I would like Norplant, the Pill, and Depo-Provera to be cheaper,
and I would like to be able to get health insurance at a reasonable cost.
Is this something you would like too, Edward?

In the meanwhile, though, what would you say to someone like me? Would you
have the gall to tell me that I shouldn't be having any sex because I
can't afford the best birth control out there? And I would rather not hear
you say to me, "there are lots of other things to do besides intercourse",
as if I wasn't aware of that fact. If I want to have intercourse, it is
not within anyone's right to tell me I shouldn't. Not to mention that I
think that would be a really snotty motive for making abortion illegal --
to try to curb the sexual habits of others.

Alison (no .sig yet! :-))

acolman@nyx.cs.du.edu, Alison Colman@launchpad.oit.unc.edu
Newsgroups: talk.abortion