We are still talking in consented sex scene/setting right? why can a woman be able to consent to have sex 200 times and a man only 15 times ?
Thought I read men are the ones wired to have multiple relationships.

Remember we are not talking about prostitutes. Don't mix it up.

I don't think women can easily have sex - many things are involved biologically, emotionally etc

benalvino3:


For a woman to have sex with men, she just have to ask do you want to have sex to them. Many will say yes because most time women are the ones who consent to sex. For a guy to ask women, it will be hard because him that is asking still has to wait for yes.

You will find more men who are starve of sex in the streets or clubs than women. I hope you get my point. In short, I am saying women can easily have sex if they want to compared to men.

Evangelynn:
Abortion isn't a must and it is not by force so I don't get this unnecessary attention it gets.

Same people against social welfare that will benefit children are against abortion but after the child is born that child is on its own and if government wants to help they will be screaming socialism

Lol a lot of kids born into poverty wish they weren't even born to begin with but you see people crying for the foetus unconcerned about the less privilege kids in the streets and orphanages,you lots should pick a struggle.

And let women breath.

It's all about control over women. Simple as ABC.
They don't care if the baby is thrown into the garbage after delivery or the baby dies of malnutrition, or dies of covid as can be seen in the case of Texas and Florida where their governments are fighting mask mandates in schools.

Enugurangers:

I wont be surprised if he doesn't know. On this same thread,
He did not know that Americans call "cheque" check.
He doesn't know the Ozone layer exists (he even argued with disstroy on this one).
He showed lack of understanding a basic CC statement.
He thinks contraceptives are 100% foolproof from pregnancy. (even a condom can break)
he thinks contraceptives' do not have side effects

But he would argue all day thinking he is right. He has argued with everyone on this thread on various topics except for maybe Basil.

That is why no one takes him serious.

Enugurangers:

It's all about control over women. Simple as ABC.
They don't care if the baby is thrown into the garbage after delivery or the baby dies of malnutrition.

Very true.The children can die for all they care but not the foetus.


A 4 year old girl died of Covid in Texas this week her anti-vax mother who may be pro-life forgot that being pro-life doesn't stop at 9 months.Pro-lifers think being pro-life only concerns the foetus if they really loved life they will embrace policies that makes life easier and better and getting vaccinated to save lives wouldn't be an issue or turned into a politics and conspiracy theories.
They claim to be pro-life but support the death penalty and don't support gun-control in literature it is called an oxymoron.

Evangelynn:

You guys can ask Ben if census is done on a foetus,since it is a human being and has human rights(he may not even know the definition of a human being) let's see how smart he is.

People like him failed biology and don't know simple basic sciences. BeN doesn't know that spermatozoa is a living thing that can die I am sure since sperm has a life men shouldn't be wasting it (being sarcastic). People like him doesn't know that not all pregnancies will live through nine months and that miscarriage is a natural abortion.

So it's a dog? You have lost your humanity.

I don't know the definition of human being. See argument you are making. It's a dog till it's born not a human being abi?

Because of abortion see what you are saying. When will you become human?

armyofone:
We are still talking in consented sex scene/setting right? why can a woman be able to consent to have sex 200 times and a man only 15 times ?
Thought I read men are the ones wired to have multiple relationships.

Remember we are not talking about prostitutes. Don't mix it up.

I don't think women can easily have sex - many things are involved biologically, emotionally etc

Men 15 becuase it's hard for a woman to consent to sex than a man to. Your own words support what I am saying.

Fencing is back at the Capitol because of Trumo supporters that want to protest against the imprisonment of the coupists.

Why are they protesting?I thought they are BLM people? So trumpists are protesting against for BLM people?

Lmaoo

benalvino3:


So it's a dog? You have lost your humanity.

I don't know the definition of human being. See argument you are making. It's a dog till it's born not a human being abi?

Because of abortion see what you are saying. When will you become human?

Actually my humanity is about caring for less privileged persons and helping the needy in my own little capacity.My humanity is actually being there for people and helping those who need it.I haven't lost my humanity I dey carry people matter for head that I can sacrifice my last meal for a dear friend and any stranger in dire need so yeah I am still human because I work with NGO's that reach out to people and I work pro bono with my profession.
Scientifically it isn't a human being because it cannot live on its own it is a foetus and no amount of emotional blackmail can make it untrue.
A human being has inalienable rights which a foetus doesn't have.(I will advice you study basic biology on eggs, spermatozoa etc)

I am actually more human than you may ever be because I know how to put people first before me especially those very dear to me,too human for my own good that I get criticised for it and people sometimes want to take advantage of it thinking I am stupid or a passive person which I am not.You on the other hand should try to become human and start worrying about children in the streets instead of the foetus in the womb whose 9 months survival is not 100% certain.

I disagree with you but no need going on in circles.
No woman in this life even prostitute can have sex 200 times a day!!!!!

benalvino3:


Men 15 becuase it's hard for a woman to consent to sex than a man to. Your own words support what I am saying.

armyofone:
I disagree with you but no need going on in circles.
No woman in this life even prostitute can have sex 200 times a day!!!!!

Lisa sparks sleeps with 919 men in 12 hours.

armyofone:
I disagree with you but no need going on in circles.
No woman in this life even prostitute can have sex 200 times a day!!!!!

I don't know about the adult movie actress quoted above as I don't keep such junk in my head, but what I read after googling the name said each man were only allowed 45s with the woman. I don't think any woman can go "all the way" with even 50 men in a day.

That is kind of irrelevant to the topic of abortion rights. I don't know why anyone would bring up cases of how much times a man or woman have sex to an abortion's right discussion.

Evangelynn:


Actually my humanity is about caring for less privileged persons and helping the needy in my own little capacity.My humanity is actually being there for people and helping those who need it.I haven't lost my humanity I dey carry people matter for head that I can sacrifice my last meal for a dear friend and any stranger in dire need so yeah I am still human because I work with NGO's that reach out to people and I work pro bono with my profession.
Scientifically it isn't a human being because it cannot live on its own it is a foetus and no amount of emotional blackmail can make it untrue.
A human being has inalienable rights which a foetus doesn't have.(I will advice you study basic biology on eggs, spermatozoa etc)

I am actually more human than you may ever be because I know how to put people first before me especially those very dear to me,too human for my own good that I get criticised for it and people sometimes want to take advantage of it thinking I am stupid or a passive person which I am not.You on the other hand should try to become human and start worrying about children in the streets instead of the foetus in the womb whose 9 months survival is not 100% certain.

According to you this is a dog in the photo or a pig. Not human. Yeah you put people first. You advocate for killing unborn children because you are inhumane but you put people first.

You I think a sperm is a human or a living thing but I know the egg in your kitchen will never have chicken or blood in it because it is not fertilized.

You have been demonizing religious people who take in babies left for dead, saying they don't care. You have never visited an orphanage, as a matter of fact you believe there should not be an orphanage, those children should have been aborted. Killed before they left their mothers womb but you are so humane.

You have never worked with anything. Stop lying. Finish uni first then come and talk. Everybody on this thread wants to be keyboard superman

Biology does not talk about rights of creatures dummy. Lmao. That's your definition of human being? Can you go and kill a pigeon in the UK? Try it then tell me if the pigeon is human based on what happened to you.

human being
NOUN
a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.

Enugurangers:

I don't know about the adult movie actress quoted above as I don't keep such junk in my head, but what I read after googling the name said each man were only allowed 45s with the woman. I don't think any woman can go "all the way" with even 50 men in a day.

That is kind of irrelevant to the topic of abortion rights. I don't know why anyone would bring up cases of how much times a man or woman have sex to an abortion's right discussion.

If you have been to the UK and go to a club you will know some people are there to pick up a stranger for sex. It's called a one night stand. Who a woman it's easier to find a partner than for a man to find a partner. The man when asked by a woman, the answer is always almost yes but a woman, is more likely to say no.

It is relevant because women who want to have fun will easily find an irresponsible guy who does not care about her well-being after the sex. Which is why the woman should take more measures to prevent her self from getting pregnant. Na common sense

benalvino3:


If you have been to the UK and go to a club you will know some people are there to pick up a stranger for sex. It's called a one night stand. Who a woman it's easier to find a partner than for a man to find a partner. The man when asked by a woman, the answer is always almost yes but a woman, is more likely to say no.

It is relevant because women who want to have fun will easily find an irresponsible guy who does not care about her well-being after the sex. Which is why the woman should take more measures to prevent her self from getting pregnant. Na common sense

I have been to the UK and some other countries in Europe. so you don't need to lecture me about one night stand. Both men and women go to club seeking one night stand so don't make it about the woman alone. I remember how sex starved Nigerian boys on student visas used to frequent all those night clubs were some fat white ladies (rejected by white boys) used go for clubbing. All in a bid to find a woman to sleep with. This is even irrelevant to the topic.

Contraceptives are not 100% foolproof. The irresponsible man and the irresponsible woman can still use protection which failed. If the irresponsible man had kept his penis in his pants, there wont be a need for the woman to have abortion for an unwanted pregnancy. Takes two to tango. Na common sense.

Enugurangers:

I have been to the UK and some other countries in Europe. so you don't need to lecture me about one night stand. Both men and women go to club seeking one night stand so don't make it about the woman alone. I remember how sex starved Nigerian boys on student visas used to frequent all those night clubs were some fat white ladies (rejected by white boys) used go for clubbing. All in a bid to find a woman to sleep with. This is even irrelevant to the topic.

Contraceptives are not 100% foolproof. The irresponsible man and the irresponsible woman can still use protection which failed. If the irresponsible man had kept his penis in his pants, there wont be a need for the woman to have abortion for an unwanted pregnancy. Takes two to tango. Na common sense.

You simply haven't been following. Or you are super slow. It is the woman who gets pregnant. I am not making it about her alone. Use your sense. The man does not get pregnant and after the sex he will go and they may never meet again. The man does not care what happens afterwards, if the woman is pregnant he will never know. A woman is supposed to protect herself from situations likes this.

If you cant get this you should not be here.

benalvino3:


You simply haven't been following. Or you are super slow. It is the woman who gets pregnant. I am not making it about her alone. Use your sense. The man does not get pregnant and after the sex he will go and they may never meet again. The man does not care what happens afterwards, if the woman is pregnant he will never know. A woman is supposed to protect herself from situations likes this.

If you cant get this you should not be here.

I don't need anyone to tell me you are a very irresponsible man. I pity any LovePeddler that would open her legs, and let you inseminate her with your cursed seeds. In your warped mind, banning abortion at 6 weeks would stop women from aborting a foetus just as banning abortion would stop men and women from having Nightstand or prostituting. You are very daft as many posters have mentioned on this thread. You are a good reason why abortion should be legal so you don't pass on your stupidity.

Abortion is illegal in Nigeria, but there are countless quacks in back alleys still damaging women's womb all over the country because randy goats like you won't keep their dirty penis' in their pants.

Enugurangers:

I don't need anyone to tell me you are a very irresponsible man. I pity any LovePeddler that would open her legs, and let you inseminate her with your cursed seeds. In your warped mind, banning abortion at 6 weeks would stop women from aborting a foetus just as banning abortion would stop men and women from having Nightstand or prostituting. You are very daft as many posters have mentioned on this thread. You are a good reason why abortion should be legal so you don't pass on your stupidity.

Abortion is illegal in Nigeria, but there are countless quacks in back alleys still damaging women's womb all over the country because randy goats like you won't keep their dirty penis' in their pants.

He will never understand or pretend not to understand. The countries where abortion is banned usually has higher rate of abortion than countries it is legal. Criminalizing abortion had never discouraged or reduced abortion anywhere. It only drives it underground making it more expensive and less safe. New South Wales and Northern Ireland found out the hard way. After banning abortion for decades, they found out that outright ban is fools paradise and eventually legalized it.

benalvino3:


According to you this is a dog in the photo or a pig. Not human. Yeah you put people first. You advocate for killing unborn children because you are inhumane but you put people first.

You I think a sperm is a human or a living thing but I know the egg in your kitchen will never have chicken or blood in it because it is not fertilized.

You have been demonizing religious people who take in babies left for dead, saying they don't care. You have never visited an orphanage, as a matter of fact you believe there should not be an orphanage, those children should have been aborted. Killed before they left their mothers womb but you are so humane.

You have never worked with anything. Stop lying. Finish uni first then come and talk. Everybody on this thread wants to be keyboard superman

Biology does not talk about rights of creatures dummy. Lmao. That's your definition of human being? Can you go and kill a pigeon in the UK? Try it then tell me if the pigeon is human based on what happened to you.

@bold,when was this and when did I say that or do you know me? You are not okay and you are very silly for assuming things from your butt.
Actually I have worked and I am done so keep quiet and stop assuming nonsense that you don't know about me.
Dummy when did I say that biology talks about rights of creatures? don't you see how people fail exam because they cannot read to comprehend and you are a big example of that embarrassing yourself here.

To tell how dumb you are you are talking about a pigeon and killing it you seem to forget that a pigeon is not in the womb and can survive on its own.Ben when will you have sense? who said anything about biology defining humans beings.

You are nothing but a clown if you think being pro-choice means being in support of killing unborn children.There is no logical argument to support that just nonsense emotional blackmail ignorant folks like you peddle I am not inhumane and I am more humane than you will ever be.

benalvino3:


According to you this is a dog in the photo or a pig. Not human. Yeah you put people first. You advocate for killing unborn children because you are inhumane but you put people first.

You I think a sperm is a human or a living thing but I know the egg in your kitchen will never have chicken or blood in it because it is not fertilized.

You have been demonizing religious people who take in babies left for dead, saying they don't care. You have never visited an orphanage, as a matter of fact you believe there should not be an orphanage, those children should have been aborted. Killed before they left their mothers womb but you are so humane.

You have never worked with anything. Stop lying. Finish uni first then come and talk. Everybody on this thread wants to be keyboard superman

Biology does not talk about rights of creatures dummy. Lmao. That's your definition of human being? Can you go and kill a pigeon in the UK? Try it then tell me if the pigeon is human based on what happened to you.

In your definition of a human being where did it mention foetus? Also the propaganda picture you posted what month is the foetus in that picture or don't you know that abortion can take place before it develops to that stage

Evangelynn:
Abortion isn't a must and it is not by force so I don't get this unnecessary attention it gets.

Same people against social welfare that will benefit children are against abortion but after the child is born that child is on its own and if government wants to help they will be screaming socialism

Lol a lot of kids born into poverty wish they weren't even born to begin with but you see people crying for the foetus unconcerned about the less privilege kids in the streets and orphanages,you lots should pick a struggle.

And let women breath.

Hear them.

Evangelynn:
Many pro-life crusaders don't really care about the foetus they just care about controling women while absorbing men of blame.

If truly they cared about women they would make laws and put things in place to make life better for the children,their parents and holding men accountable too.

Oh. You already know them, lol.

budaatum:



Hear them.

100% no lies detected

Evangelynn:

In your definition of a human being where did it mention foetus? Also the propaganda picture you posted what month is the foetus in that picture or don't you know that abortion can take place before it develops to that stage

You say a lot of stupid things.
Has the socalled fetus ever become a dog? Do you know any woman who gave birth to a dog? Biology is smart enough not to allow the sperm of a dog fertilize the eggs in a human. Once the sperm cell meets the eggs, a human begins to form. There will never be a time that will result to a fish. Only an inhumane person will distort definition of humans because of abortion.

I have been saying they allowed abortion before the heart starts to beat, I said when a woman is raped she should check for pregnancy so she can abort before it got to that stage.

What I posted is abortion. That picture shows you a human that was slaughtered. It was called abortion. That's not a fetus, it was an embryo, it grown to that stage.

In the definition of humans, where did it say transgender man or woman? You see how stupid your question is?

benalvino3:


Lisa sparks sleeps with 919 men in 12 hours.

Therefore most, if not all, women sleep with 919 men in their entire lifetime?

Hope you know Bezos. He's a space going billionaire and a man so I guess ben too must be a space going billionaire and a ........

Forgive me. I just couldn't call you what you are not.

Evangelynn:

@bold,when was this and when did I say that or do you know me? You are not okay and you are very silly for assuming things from your butt.
Actually I have worked and I am done so keep quiet and stop assuming nonsense that you don't know about me.
Dummy when did I say that biology talks about rights of creatures? don't you see how people fail exam because they cannot read to comprehend and you are a big example of that embarrassing yourself here.

To tell how dumb you are you are talking about a pigeon and killing it you seem to forget that a pigeon is not in the womb and can survive on its own.Ben when will you have sense? who said anything about biology defining humans beings.

You are nothing but a clown if you think being pro-choice means being in support of killing unborn children.There is no logical argument to support that just nonsense emotional blackmail ignorant folks like you peddle I am not inhumane and I am more humane than you will ever be.

You and your friends have been demonizing religious groups here.

Fool, pigeons don't have human right that's the point. You can't even reason. Also pigeons are not counted In Census. Na mumu people argument you make so own it.

Now you want to tell me the only thing you can kill without human right is anything that is in the womb of a woman. You seem to have failed in human values. A failed feminist, a failed human. Go sleep abeg.

Maybe by the time you graduate small sense fit don enter your head.

benalvino3:


If you have been to the UK and go to a club you will know some people are there to pick up a stranger for sex. It's called a one night stand.

And you think those who one night stand are abortionists?

Is that because if you were them you would fail to learn from your own experience if not from those you followed to go out every weekend so you'd get knocked up just so you can abort?

Would you be aborting every week ben?

benalvino3:

What I posted is abortion. That picture shows you a human that was slaughtered. It was called abortion. That's not a fetus, it was an embryo, it grown to that stage.

You've been asked twice now ben. How old is the "embryo" in the picture you think you can blackmail with?

benalvino3:


You say a lot of stupid things

Actually,that must be you.

Has the socalled fetus ever become a dog?

You should answer the question because I don't remember talking about an animal or dog you brought that to the discussion so answer yourself

Do you know any woman who gave birth to a dog

Lol,you are not intelligent at all who said anything about that,since you are obsessed with dogs answer the question yourself where on earth did this dog theory come from Ben?

Biology is smart enough not to allow the sperm of a dog fertilize the eggs in a human. Once the sperm cell meets the eggs, a human begins to form. There will never be a time that will result to a fish. Only an inhumane person will distort definition of humans because of abortion

.
Yadayadadayada rubbish as usual .Nobody distorted any definition of a human being you posted the definition yourself and no where was a foetus categorised as a human being.Can a foetus be counted in census?does a foetus breath on its own and do other basic things on its own if no then how is that human or we should then categorise other organisms and cells in our bodies as human beings too

I have been saying they allowed abortion before the heart starts to beat, I said when a woman is raped she should check for pregnancy so she can abort before it got to that stage.

See where you shoot yourself on the foot,so she should abort it before it reaches that stage or before it gets to that stage isn't it an unborn child too?Ben where is your humanity? why so inhumane if only you were smart if you could support that idea then you would understand why abortions happen and why it should always be an option available but how will you know this.Some persons don't abort because they find joy in it some may be giving birth to children who will come to this earth to suffer disabilities and genetic problems hence why late term abortions happen most times so as for the parents and other family members not be under such burden to begin with or what about SS children and other children who may be born with special needs.If you can overlook that and forget that a foetus conceived by rape should be aborted early you can also lose your so-called humanity and overlook the other examples I gave to you.

What I posted is abortion. That picture shows you a human that was slaughtered. It was called abortion. That's not a fetus, it was an embryo, it grown to that stage.

What you showed is nothing but a propaganda picture of what isn't needed by the person carrying it and since government wouldn't want to take responsibility why should the individual be burdened .There is no slaughter there and you cannot use the word slaughter for an embryo

In the definition of humans, where did it say transgender man or woman? You see how stupid your question is?

I don't get you isn't a transgender not categorised as a human being which also makes it a male or female how about countries that categorise hermaphrodites too lol you are not updated to realise that humans are not just man or woman as well you see how stupid your analogy is.

benalvino3:


You and your friends have been demonizing religious groups here.

Fool, pigeons don't have human right that's the point. You can't even reason. Also pigeons are not counted In Census. Na mumu people argument you make so own it.

Now you want to tell me the only thing you can kill without human right is anything that is in the womb of a woman. You seem to have failed in human values. A failed feminist, a failed human. Go sleep abeg.

Maybe by the time you graduate small sense fit don enter your head.

Be specific who demonized religious groups here or did that happen in your delusional head again you are so shameless lying ehn.When was that stop lying.
You can't even reason because you don't know that there are people who believe that animals have rights hence why many of them are vegetarians and some religions don't also subscribe to killing animals because they regard them as beings with rights as well even environmental and animal rights activist you are the one making mumu argument because you are not an intelligent person you are embarrassing yourself here and your analogies make no sense all the time.

You are failed human being that is why you are very sad and you always fail to learn,take corrections and grow in knowledge.You actually need to sleep more maybe when you rest you will reason properly and have sense.It is dull people like you that don't know that murder, manslaughter etc all have legal definitions and it concerns the human beings we see alive and not the embryo or foetus so how do you expect any logical argument to prove that abortion is murder it is not murder and can never be categorised as one even in the legal sense. only a religious, emotional or subjective moral argument can do that but then you are shallow.

You must be talking about graduating or going back to school because you never still get sense see this benassumpter talking with confidence like as if he knows me and what I do,stop projecting yourself on me.

budaatum:


Therefore most, if not all, women sleep with 919 men in their entire lifetime?

Hope you know Bezos. He's a space going billionaire and a man so I guess ben too must be a space going billionaire and a ........

Forgive me. I just couldn't call you what you are not.

You are reasoning like a fetus now.

I said it is easy for a woman to sleep with more men than a man can sleep with women. I have reasons why with random numbers and one of your mates said it's impossible and I gave him actual fact and you came up with this nonsense? You get sense abi? Use am.

budaatum:


And you think those who one night stand are abortionists?

Is that because if you were them you would fail to learn from your own experience if not from those you followed to go out every weekend so you'd get knocked up just so you can abort?

Would you be aborting every week ben?

Where did I say that?

If you get sense you won't be making stupid assumptions. My words are women should protect themselves when they sleep with men they don't know. If you get common sense you for know this.

benalvino3:


Where did I say that?

If you get sense you won't be making stupid assumptions. My words are women should protect themselves when they sleep with men they don't know. If you get common sense you for know this.

It is not surprising you'd mention one night stands and abortion in the same sentence.

A few months ago, I was late. You know what I mean: My usual period day came and went without a spot, and suddenly every wave of exhaustion, every twinge of anxious nausea, became a harbinger of a very unintended pregnancy, a sign that my NuvaRing had failed me. I’m married, happily at that. And I’m a mother, happily as well. But our family feels “complete,” as demographers put it, at one child. And so my husband and I had to make a choice—or so we thought, for a very tense week before my body made the choice for me. As we lay awake at night whispering pros and cons for continuing the pregnancy, stopping only when our daughter padded in to snuggle under our covers in the predawn hours, I wondered if our mere deliberating might call into question my soundness as a mother. If I, already happily immersed in parenting, chose to terminate, wouldn’t I be unusual for doing so, maybe even stigmatized as a sort of prenatal Medea?

I was wrong. Women who are already mothers have more abortions than anyone else, and by an increasingly wide margin. When Guttmacher Institute researchers last ran the numbers in 2008 they found that 61 percent of women who terminate a pregnancy in this country already have at least one child. That was before the recession, though—before the poverty rate rose to swallow 40.7 percent of women who head families, many of whom know they can’t afford another child.* So I asked the National Abortion Federation, a professional association of abortion providers, to run the numbers on the women visiting their clinics and calling their hotlines in the past few years. The resulting figures shocked NAF President Vicki Saporta, who called to tell me that every year since 2008, a whopping 72 percent of NAF clients looking to terminate a pregnancy were already mothers, up at least 10 percent from the years before the economy crashed.

But while the typical abortion patient is a mother, very few people seem to realize it. Lawrence Finer, Guttmacher’s director of domestic research, told me that this fact is “one of the most unknown and surprising statistics across the board.”* Guttmacher is trying to correct the public’s misperceptions with a YouTube PSA designed to show that women who have abortions aren’t necessarily who we think they are. But why are these misperceptions so skewed in the first place? Is the intersection of motherhood and abortion a minefield that activists choose not to navigate?

NAF’s Saporta told me she thinks anti-abortionists have successfully depicted women who choose to terminate a pregnancy as sexually indiscriminate. “It’s much harder to demonize the mother who is struggling to support the kid she already has,” she says. But then why doesn’t the group that she leads make this very point? “Good question—I think we should,” she replied. I also put the question to Gloria Feldt, the former longtime Planned Parenthood Federation of America president. “I believe the whole movement has made a terrible mistake,” she said, referring to the pro-choice movement’s decision to avoid talking about mothers’ motives for having abortions, and instead focus “on the less frequent reasons, which are rape and incest or teens who are simply not ready to be parents.”

For her part, Rachel Jones, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, thinks that public perceptions of who aborts and why are skewed mostly as a result of all the political heat around late-term abortions and adolescent abortions (minors have only 7 percent of all abortions). In other words, she argues, mothers who abort are invisible not because anyone is conspiring to keep them that way, but because so much attention is focused on other women.

But why do mothers have so many abortions in the first place? Jones co-authored a qualitative study titled “I Would Want To Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions,” which found that most mothers who abort say they are doing so to protect the kids they already have. As Jones points out, that rationale is tough to demonize politically, especially when you consider that most women making this choice are contending with some combination of low income, unemployment, and a lack of health insurance, or are struggling to raise kids on their own.

These are the kinds of stories Anne Baker hears daily across the little round table in her office at the St. Louis-area Hope Clinic for Women, where she has been counseling abortion seekers for 35 years. In 2008, the last year for which the clinic has available numbers, 62 percent of its patients were mothers. But Baker says the number of mothers coming in has swelled markedly since then, just as it did during the economic slowdown of the late ’70s, when she was first starting out at the clinic. She has compiled a list of 25 reasons mothers commonly give her for not having another child. By far the No. 1 reason is a desire to protect the families they already have. Most of the time, this calculus is an economic one, though Baker has also noted a growing number of women like me, women who are “less apologetic than they used to be about saying they’re a good mom and for them to continue to be a good mom, they choose to do it with one.”

Of course, when it comes to public opinion, it’s one thing for a mother to choose an abortion out of desperation, and another to do it out of preference. Feldt says the motivations behind a mother’s choice to terminate place her on a sliding scale of public opinion. Recalling her days polling voters at PPFA, she describes the American view of who gets to have an abortion like this: “The less in control of a woman’s life she is, the more the public supports her right to make that choice [to have an abortion]. The more she is in control of her life, saying this is the life I choose, the less people support it.” So if a mother who is destitute chooses to abort, we might accept her decision. But someone like me, who could support another child if only I moved to a less expensive ZIP code and got a job with a steadier paycheck? I’d be a moral pariah.

“It’s scandalous for white women like you and me,” Jennifer Baumgardner recently told me over coffee. When Baumgardner gathered women’s abortion testimonies for her book Abortion and Life, she had yet to terminate a pregnancy herself (on the book’s cover, she’s pictured pregnant with her second child). But when she subsequently found herself pregnant again, she chose to abort rather than have a third child. When we start talking about why the pro-choice movement hasn’t made mothers more of the story of abortion in America, Baumgardner rolls her eyes. “Women in the movement have this enormous disconnect between actual lives and what they believe in,” she says. “They’ll talk about other women but they think their own story can be used to undermine them.”

Is all this true, though? Is the stigma that attaches to abortion actually compounded if one makes this choice as a mother? Are we right to think that terminating a pregnancy after carrying another one successfully to term will undermine our standing not just as women but as good parents?

At the University of California-San Francisco, Kate Cockrill directs the Social and Emotional Aspects of Abortion Program, and is trying to measure sources of stigma. She has found that many mothers deliberately explain their choice to abort in the context of their motherhood, thinking that doing so will ward off judgment. “Motherhood is an assertion of their humanity,” Cockrill told me of women who fear condemnation, “and claiming their motherhood is part of managing the stigma of abortion.”

Still, Cockrill has found that once they have established social identities as mothers, many women will do everything they can to avoid tarnishing that identity. For example, she found women who had babies delivered by an OB-GYN refused to see that physician when they found themselves in an unwanted pregnancy. “They wanted to be seen as a mother,” she said, “not an abortion patient.”

Corrections, Oct. 18, 2011: This article originally stated that 42 percent of women live in poverty. This statistic refers only to women who head families, and the correct percentage is 40.7, not 42 percent. (Return to the corrected sentence.) The article also misidentified Lawrence Finer as Larry. (Return to the current sentence.)
https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/10/most-surprising-abortion-statistic-the-majority-of-women-who-terminate-pregnancies-are-already-mothers.html