Abortion and the American dream

Can getting an abortion enable women to chase the American dream? That's Planned Parenthood's spin on the latest abortion statistics, but Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, told WoW the statistics reflect an American "betrayal of women."

Some 60% of women who get abortions already have a child, and one-third have two or more children. The Guttmacher Institute interviewed women who said they got abortions to put their older children first. Two-thirds of these women were at or below the poverty line and their partners gave them little help.

Planned Parenthood's Vanessa Cullins said the solution is abortion: "If you're a single mother, achieving the dream is all the harder, so it makes sense to limit family size." Foster said the solution to women's misery is not to promote abortion but to "try to get ahead of the curve so people aren't in a state of misery." Foster said, "Feminists should be talking about the ability of women to overcome obstacles instead of accepting the status quo."

Angela Lanfranchi, a breast surgeon who has to ask about her patients' reproductive histories, said women often tell her they got abortions because their families, husbands and boyfriends pressured them. Lanfranchi notes that homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women, and some women act out of physical fear. In one instance, a woman's family refused to take her in and her baby's father threw her down a flight of concrete stairs when she said she didn't want an abortion.

Of the post-abortive women Lanfranchi has interviewed, "The vast majority felt that they were under duress, that it wasn't something that was freely chosen." Foster said, "Women feel like they're alone … because we've said it's her body, it's her choice, and it's her problem. … Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women, and women deserve better than abortion."