Abortion/BirthControl Rant

Sorry in advance for the rant but give me a minute here.

I've never heard of anyone who intentionally got pregnant and then just changed their mind and had an abortion, or used abortion as after-the-fact birth control. Those scenarios are EXTREMELY rare compared to scenarios like:
 - If the fetus was brought to term, it would be profoundly disabled mentally or physically
 - If the fetus was brought to term, it would endanger the mother's health
 - The fetus was conceived by an act of rape or incest or both and forcing the mother to carry it to term and raise it would be an extreme hardship
 - The fetus was conceived because birth control failed and the parents do not have the means or ability to raise the child well

I don't think anyone should ever make a decision to abort a child lightly, but I don't think that happens very much. Abortion is a last resort. Nobody WANTS to have an abortion. It happens because something went wrong. And forcing a woman to carry a baby to term is NOT the government's decision, your decision, my decision, or frankly anyone's decision but her own.

Now let's discuss the politics. I think most of us agree that no amount of religion or discouragement or scare tactics will prevent horny teenagers from bumpin' uglies. The data shows that abstinence-only education is a failure - the states that employ that methodology have the highest teen pregnancy rates, and also the highest infant mortality rates.

Therefore, "real" sex education is mandatory. I've known 20-something-year-old women that didn't know where urine exits their body, or that you can't get pregnant from a hot tub or toilet seat. That's unacceptable.

I think we can also agree that providing free condoms, or even birth control pills, would cost the taxpayers FAR less money than the additional kids in public schools, on welfare or SNAP, etc.
Not to mention the unpaid medical bills that end up on the taxpayer's tab when people can't pay them - if a woman gets pregnant and can't afford it, we're already going to pay for it when she defaults on the hospital bill and becomes one of the 619,342 Americans that declare bankruptcy every year due to medical costs - and the average cost of childbirth is now $8,800.

And none of that even begins to address the reality that children raised by economically disadvantaged single mothers are much less likely to become productive, upstanding, tax-paying citizens than those raised by parents who had children intentionally.

The bottom line is, giving kids a real education and real options is not only more cost-effective, it's better for our country - and arguably, it's the Christian thing to do.

The only leg the Conservatives have left to stand on is that "abortion is murder" - but they also claim to value personal freedom, small government, and state's rights, and want lower taxes.... But they don't want to provide birth control, either - they want women to be forced to carry that child to term, even if it might kill her or is likely to be severely retarded. And once it's born? No maternal leave. No welfare. No SNAP. No government assistance, you lazy moocher.

They're not pro-life, they're only pro-birth.

So if Conservatives want to reduce abortion, they need to provide options and alternatives, like REAL sex education, affordable and accessible birth control, funding for adoption programs, financial support for new moms, etc. not just yell "abortion is murder!" and hide behind their Bibles.