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This truly bothers me.

Imagine it: you live though the most traumatic thing that could happen, you lose your family, your home, your job in one fell swoop. You make your way to someplace that should be where you can be safe, only to find you need to worry about being raped .

I found this:

Charity Hospital, the primary trauma hospital in New Orleans, has been fired upon by snipers. Coast Guard rescue helicopters have also been shot at, as have boats deployed to save the stranded now going on their 5th day without clean water or food. A relief truck was intercepted by armed gunmen on the West Bank. Women have been raped at the New Orleans Convention Center by their fellow evacuees.

And this:

“I walked out of my home because I feared for my child’s life,” said Dartrick Washington, 26, holding his 4-month-old listless baby boy, Jahieem, in the shade of a building near the overpass.

He was also responsible for his sister, his mother, and a female neighbor, and fearful of taking them anywhere near the Superdome because of rumors that women had been raped in the stadium-turned-shelter.

There are other, similar stories.

Refugees are raping fellow survivors. I boggled reading this. How could any person do this? What mind set is there that allows that type of thinking?

It’s bad enough in day to day life, where you can’t tell the predators from the nice guys. But to be in a survival situation, where everyone is suffering the same and still find men preying on women is just beyond me. What is the thinking? I might die but at least I got me a piece first?

How could any person amidst such suffering inflict more?

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In comments on that thread on Dawn’s blog, “Butterfingers” wrote:

The bottom line is that abortion is as old as mankind. There has never been a period in human history when abortions were not performed. There has not been a single society - whether it officially approved of abortion or not - where abortions were not performed.

And then “Steve G.” responded:

What you state here is without doubt true in regards to historical accuracy. But that it occurs really has no bearing on its moral correctness, whether we should accept it, or whether it should be legal. I could rewrite the entire paragraph you lay down and substitute the word rape, and it would be equally accurate. I presume you wouldn’t be willing to argue that rape should be legal because, well after all it’s always happened and will always happen, correct? This argument just doesn’t hold any force.

I don’t think Steve’s argument makes much sense. After all, we all want rapists to be punished, regardless of what happens to rape prevalence.

In contrast, what I’ve heard from pro-lifers over and over is that pro-lifers don’t want to punish women. Unless pro-lifers are lying about that, then there’s a critical difference we all agree on between rapists and women who abort - punishing the former is an independent good, punishing the latter is not.

But if punishing women isn’t an independent good, like punishing rapists is, then pro-lifers can’t logically say that women who abort should be punished regardless of what happens to abortion prevalence.

* * *

It’s a more than theoretical point, because in the real world, countries do in effect choose between a punishment-based approach, in which abortions are banned by law, and low abortion rates.

As I’ve said in the past, pro-lifers should be asking which countries have the least abortion? Belgium has an abortion rate of 6.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The Netherlands, 6.5. Germany, 7.8. Compare that to the USA’s rate of 22. Even better, compare it to countries where abortion is illegal: Egypt, 23; Brazil, 40; Chile, 50; Peru, 56.

According to the World Health Organization:

Contrary to common belief, legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world: 5.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. Barbados, Canada, Tunisia and Turkey have all changed abortion laws to allow for greater access to legal abortion without increasing abortion rates.

Pro-life policies aren’t associated with low abortion rates. But pro-choice policies are.

Without exception, every country in the world with a very low abortion rate has either legal abortion, or bans so toothless that abortion is effectively legal. But what those countries (Belgium, West Germany, The Netherlands, etc) also have are cultures that strongly promote effective use of birth control, and that have strong social support programs that support poor parents - not just before birth and in the first year of infancy, but for life.

The abortion debate in the US can go on forever. We can have yet another round of clever, heartfelt essays like Dawn’s, implying that the other side is uncaring; or, if we want a better debate than that, we could argue for the zillionth time about how to define personhood. But that will never get us anywhere.

Rather than rehash those questions, I’d like to ask pro-lifers: Do you forsee a time when pro-choicers will give up our most heartfelt goals, and stop finding ways to make abortion available? Will there ever be an abortion ban in the United States that vastly lowers our abortion rate? And since saving baby lives (or what you folks consider to be baby lives) should be more important than opposing birth control and welfare, shouldn’t you be willing to consider supporting policies that are empirically associated with low abortion rates in the real world?

We can have it both ways. We can have full bodily autonomy for women, and combine it with an incredibly low abortion rate. And we can end the deadlock. But it requires both sides to give something up. It requires pro-choicers to agree that pursing low abortion rates is a legitimate policy goal; and it requires pro-lifers to agree to pursue low abortion rates through giving women more choices, not through banning choices.

I know pro-lifers may consider that to be an immoral thing to ask of them. But consider: Real-world experience indicates that Belgium-style social policies are the only national policy that is associated with the lowest possible abortion rates. Is it really clear to pro-lifers that a policy that could potentially prevent tens of thousands of abortions annually is the less moral choice?

(Note to “Alas” posters: I’m really, really interested in what pro-lifers have to say about these issues. But it’s my observation that the most intellgent and thoughtful pro-lifers are also the least likely to hang out in places where they get insulted and flamed. So please, as a favor to me, don’t flame pro-lifers who happen to show up in the comments of this post.)

I’ve lost count of how many posts and comments I’ve read about that New York Times article. I’ve been by turns fascinated and amused by individual stories, shocked by the level of vitriol and misunderstanding, intrigued by the various side-tracks that come up and baffled at how many people miss the point of the outrage.

Consider the conclusion of the article:

Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time.

The responsibility for considering these risks lies with the women. If the passion leaves their lives as a result, that’s something over which their menfolk have no control. Women have to decide whether they want to take the risk of asking their partner to support them as they bring into the world the child they created together.

Either you think there’s a problem with attitudes like that, or you don’t.

This little bit of news is met by me with both approval and sadness. It seems that FDA official, Susan Wood, director of FDA’s Office of Women’s Health has resigned after the FDA decision on Friday to postpone the decision to make Plan B an over the counter drug indefinitely.

CNN reports that in her letter of resignation, Wood wrote;

“I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled,” wrote Wood, who also was assistant commissioner for women’s health. “The recent decision announced by the Commissioner about emergency contraception, which continues to limit women’s access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions, is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women’s health.”

So for obvious reasons, it’s very sad to see an ally that potentially had pull within the lions den deciding to give up the fight, but on the other hand I can understand and appreciate her frustration in the face of continuously mounting opposition within the FDA via ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists being appointed to key roles.

Commissioner Lester tried to soft-pedal his objections, in an obvious attempt at pacifying people for the ignorant decision;

the agency considered over-the-counter sales to women 17 and older fine, but that younger teens would still need a prescription — and that the agency was unable to decide how pharmacies could enforce an age limit, or even if it was legal to have such dual sales.