I think we have different ideas about many things, including China’s forcible “one child” policy. I suppose that one of us is right, but I don’t think we can find out in this forum.

One thing, though – if Planned Parenthood gave up abortion, then I doubt very much that anyone would be trying to cut off their government funding, much less shut them down. If, as they say, only 3% of their work is abortion, they can simply drop that 3% and get back to getting paid by the government for all their other services.

My first wife and I were very poor students. She got her lady care and birth control at heavily subsidized fees. Planned Parenthood was a godsend for us. I just can’t understand why anybody would want to close them down.

Roughly twenty percent of pregnancies are aborted. How can the procedure be considered extreme? Up to about 1900, infanticide was used to control reproduction. Good birth control beyond “just say no” and safe abortion provide our society the luxury of outlawing infanticide.

Money is fungible; that’s what makes money, money. The common reference to Planned Parenthood’s bookkeeping is sophomoric. I see “right to life” to be ignorant and evil.

The great progress in living stands in China came , to a great extent from restrictions on reproduction. Those blessings were denied to many other countries by the extreme policies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Shame on them.

http://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=1315

“Looking back, I know that child must have been fighting for its very life. If I had only known then what I know now about abortion! I heard what I wanted to hear, blacking out the reality of what I was about to do.”

http://www.priestsforlife.org/postabortion/casestudyproject/casestudy764.htm

“I saw women who were emotionally and physically scarred by their visit to an abortion clinic. They often came asking us if it was a baby, and more often than not, they were lied to and told no. ‘It’s a product of conception,’ we’d say, or ‘it’s just a few missed periods, that’s all.’” – Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of Roe v. Wade and former abortion clinic worker

I am not a Republican – I really don’t care *which* party deals with abortion. Both of the major parties practice dishonesty.

“Have you ever actually spoken to a woman who has had an abortion?”

At least three. One of them thought that she was haunted by the ghost of the dead fetus.

I have seen estimates that at least some women will change their minds after learning more about the child – women strike me as competent enough to assimilate new information and process it appropriately – I don’t get the idea of affirming women by withholding information from them.

That’s a lot of supposition coming from a person who will never find himself impregnated. Are you seriously postulating that most women who get abortions don’t bother to consider their choice before they already get there? Have you ever actually spoken to a woman who has had an abortion?

Also, your reference to ‘clever accounting’ was a real hoot, but I think more apropos of WND or Breitbart if you want to defend Republicans using dishonesty and not be challenged.

Bob, what’s your defense of these tactics considering Republicans campaigned before Nov. ’10 almost exclusively on a mantra of ‘jobs,’ but instead spent (and continue to spend) millions of dollars attacking a constitutional right and failed to introduce one single jobs bill?

Oh, wait. I’m talking about American democracy. Never mind. It’s already debased.

I’m not sure which abortion regulations *wouldn’t* be extreme, if these two are.

Indiana decided that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to give money to abortion providers, no matter how much clever bookkeeping the government uses. Government assistance to one part of an organization’s activities (eg, condoms) frees up money for other parts (eg, abortion).

Requiring a mother to learn about her fetus before killing it is about as moderate as it gets. If the mother doesn’t want to learn, perhaps it’s because she isn’t fully comfortable with an abortion, and that a Sunsteinian “nudge” might induce her to go with some other option, like adoption or raising the child herself.

The Supreme Court forbids “undue burden[s]” on abortion – whether any burden is “due” is something we can only learn when the court rules.

The Texas law requires doctors to provide verbal descriptions of fetuses before abortion even if neither they nor the pregnant woman want that. See: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/10/136175320/gop-lawmakers-push-for-stricter-abortion-laws?ps=rs

Whether or not these measures would count as extreme in some sort of absolute sense, when launched against the background of a continuing assertion by the U.S. Supreme Court of a constitutional right to abortion, they more or less announce “I dare you to strike me down.”