[swat535]

I think the uncomfortable truth that many are reluctant to admit is that religion and societal norms (as you highlighted above) played a major role in this.

I'm not discounting other facts such as the housing crisis or cost of living but I fear that while those are important, they are secondary.

Women were often forced to carry a child due to outside pressure and had no recourse. However since the introduction of safe abortions and readily accessible birth control methods, they have regained their bodily autonomy which allows them to skip unwanted pregnancies.

I think that ultimately, liberating women is a _good_ thing because child bearing is difficult and no one women should be forced to go through it.

With all that said, having children can be wonderful. Perhaps a better solution is to both celebrate and encourage families while keeping abortion and birth control accessible. It doesn't have to be a binary choice.

[sebmellen]

The issue is not so much the access to the methods, but the negative feedback loop that they cause. For every woman freed from unwanted childbearing, how many are socially pressured into not having a child?

Anecdotally, this is something that my wife and I experienced as relatively young parents (~24 at first child): people expect abortion to be the default. I can't tell you how many people asked us when we were going to “just get rid of the thing” because they expected that to be the default option. We have no idea how damaging this effect is to overall fertility.

The saddest part is that many women will get to an age where they do want to have one or more children, but because they are closer to the end of their fertile window, they cannot. I’ve seen this happen to my extended friends and family far more than the “unwanted pregnancy” scenario, which I’ve only seen happen once.

Fundamentally, there's perhaps a broader philosophical divide. Do you believe that children are burdensome, or the most valuable thing you can produce in life? If you think the former, it's nearly impossible to feel any motivation to tolerate the difficulty of pregnancy and childbearing.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Anecdotally, this is something that my wife and I experienced as relatively young parents (~24 at first child): people expect abortion to be the default.

People expected a married couple of grown adults to get an abortion by default rather than congratulating you on accomplishing what you were plainly trying on purpose?

[jalapenos]

Simpler than this: how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops. After than it's automatically into rearing mode and don't have time to mull such crap. Then as the shock peters off after a year or so, any original thoughts or utterings of "unwanted" get code-of-silence buried til the end of days, and don't ever come back.

[pjc50]

> how long does an unwanted pregnancy remain unwanted? Basically 9 months tops

An unwanted pregnancy can remain unwanted for the rest of your life.

(everyone then walks back to "oh I didn't mean abortion should be banned in cases of rape or medical risk to the mother", at which point we have to point out that the religious conservatives very much do want that.)

[jalapenos]

Only if you're sick in the head. Can you imagine? Little girl or boy running around and all you can think is "damn birth control didn't work". Monsters maybe are like that

The religious conservatives can think whatever crank nonsense they want, the rest of us can comfortably separate out the 99% elective killing case, and leave the remaining 1% cases for the controversy.