This is what the "pro-life" folks just don't get. Actions like parental notification, waiting periods, just plain making it harder to get an abortion, and ultimately overturning Roe will never STOP abortions. Abortion is not the root cause: unwanted pregnancies are. And as long as those happen, abortion can either be a safe, medical procedure or a lethal do-it-yourself project. Women with the means to will go to Canada or Europe and some women who try this project will be very lucky. I hope all the pro-lifer's out there with daughters, mothers, aunts, nieces and friends have good health insurance that covers birth control.

I am not surprised that illegal abortions might be on the rise. This is what the anti-legal birth control and anti-legal abortion crowds have been working on for years. I am angry that the abortion clinics and women's health clinics do not out those conservatives who continue to use birth control and have abortions. They know who they are; they should make them pay for their moral hyprocrisy.

We forget that it isn't just women who are used to safe, accessable abortion. Men are too. Well, I can't wait for some of those southern NASCAR idiots - you know, the ones who have been voting against their economic interests by voting for Republicans - to lose the boat, the house, and their weekends to pay 18 years of child support. Maybe that's what it will take to get the government out of our bedrooms. I can't wait for those guys to have to keep their tackle under wraps because there is NO birth control available. Except condoms, and guys don't like to wear them. Tough. They'll be gone soon enough.

Men aren't worrying. I had this argument with my husband, with the new Right Wing Prime Minister in Canada. Abortion rights are equality rights. Rich women will ALWAYS get their abortions. either Dad will phone up a doctor,or that married man will do what it takes to save himself embarrassment by getting his mistress a curetage and dilation. Middle class women will risk their lives and have to dig up money to travel (if not to Canada then to Europe) and poor women, well, they'll give birth.

I'm being honest with this question.

The reason all of the anti-choice crowd has been so successful is because as long as Roe is the law of the land, people don't think these stories of illegal abortions are real. Overturning Roe doesn't mean abortion immediately becomes illegal, it means that state laws would have to be passed either banning the practice or allowing it. Or... if it got to a federal level, a federal law either banning or allowing it.

Then, wouldn't the fact that 55% of the people in America are in favor of Roe and only 37% are against it come into play? Yes, the battle over that law would reach civil war proportions, but maybe it would be mostly settled once there was a federal law allowing abortion on the books. I don't know... it might be disastrous, but part of me thinks that overturning Roe wouldn't be as disastrous as lots of people think it would be.

I dunno, spike24 might have a point, but it does sound a bit like trashing the Kyoto protocol for some putative future 'better' solution to global warming.

The truth is, we didn't have to have this fight, and a lot of women- and their families and friends and communities- are going to suffer needlessly because of the chauvinism and zealotry of a frantic minority.

I'd like to see a silver lining in this situation somewhere, but I'm not getting very far.

Our current president's more-than-just-cozy relationship with the most extreme factions of the Religious Right was well known before he was elected the first time.

In other words, people concerned about reproductive choice have had plenty of time to mobilize resources and plan strategy for countering what has become an open assault on not only a woman's access to abortion, but also to contraceptive medication.

Since the Democratic Party seems at this point cowardly and inept, the Religious Right will certainly re-double its efforts to forward its theology via legislation.

If this concerns you, then you better start screaming hard and long at the Democratic Party and at the Democrats who represent you. You might even consider getting involved with the Democratic Party at the local level in order to increase the chances of your complaints being heard.

My stomach is in knots reading about precisely what will happen to abortion 'rights' which are slowly dissolving in the manner and way as you stated.

It is no wonder that we women are worriers. With the Shrub in power, I not only worry that my child is most likely to be drafted into a stupid war but now I also worry that she may have to face illegal or truly nonexistent abortion rights one day. Wait, she is now......

#$%@!

We are screwed.

I just hope all those women/men who supposedly believe(d) in abortion rights that voted for Shrub (and yes I believe that there are such people) are REALLY happy now.

I wish they would, but they won't, at least until they are confidant they can pass laws outlawing abortion nationally. As long as they have Roe, they can continue to chip away at abortion rights and make it harder to get abortions, and people will continue to allow them to do so. Most people WANT abortion to be legal, but they don't particularly care how hard it is to get an abortion. It's just not something they worry much about. If the right manages to overturn Roe, abortion will be illegal in many states, and many people will object, but as long as people know that Roe is the law of the land, they will stand by like sheep as our abortion rights are undermined. Which is why the right doesn't want Roe overturned. Weakened, Yes. Overturned, No.

Stop using this term illegal abortion. I don't care if it is legally accurate, it is unnecassary and harmful. I never hear of anyone talking about illegal bone-setting or illegal dentistry. Abortion is a procedure. When we let the word "illegal" remain attached to it, we are signalling a willingness to let courtrooms be the place for reproductive decision-making, judges the decision-makers. This is exactly the opposite of what we want.

The "anti-abortion" people only get called that because it caught on faster than the "anti-choice" name that they ought to carry. How the hell did the ridiculous term "partial-birth abortion" work it's slimy way into the lexicon? Words have tremendous power. We can't afford to be nonchalant about this, especially in this fight.

Let's call the opposite of "safe abortion" "unsafe abortion". How about "back-alley" abortion? How about "amatuer abortion"?