Hell, what would really work is setting a 32 hour week.. like they had in the 1930s..

But what do WE do? We make real sex education illegal and - (in the next step) - ban abortion..
The net result of this has been to give the US one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world... resulting in more abortions..not less..

I don't see why people don't see the hidden purpose behind this hypocritical "pro-life" agenda - as a ploy to get people to (involuntarily) have more (typically unwanted) children, to keep salaries down, real estate prices high, (covering up the fall in incomes for many) and a supply of young, draftable men with few other prospects available.

Also, the right's former 'flagship' issue, crime, has been steadily falling since around 15 years after Roe vs. Wade.

They couldn't care less about issues of real importance to building stable families..

Too expensive...

I really believe that 80+% of Repub support is simply anti-choice.  They disguise this by talking the daily talking point the Repubs put out in the media.

The numbers are straight and to the point, Bush's policies lead to MORE abortions.  Family planning and Social concerns lead to LESS abortions.

A flyer on the windshields in fundamentalist church parking lots simply showing the numbers and stating "A VOTE FOR BUSH IS A VOTE FOR MORE ABORTIONS!  A VOTE FOR KERRY IS A VOTE FOR LESS ABORTIONS!"

The reasoning anti-choice people would be forced to aggree, and the nonreasoning people would be put in such a moral dilemma that they might just stay home.

If we make this argument effectively, the Repub party would be completely undermined and would be religated to minority party for decades!

Something around 95% of abortions are for birth control rather than for the classic "life of the mother, rape, and incest". I don't think abortion is murder when the fetus isn't conscious, as Roe vs. Wade tries to explain by the first two trimesters. But I do think that abortions are a product of irresponsible living.

Very few people like abortion. No girl or woman wakes up in the morning and says I'm going to get pregnant so I can have an abortion! It is done out of desperation and the conclusion that they are unready emotionally or economically to have children.

If abortion were criminalized, it would still occur. The abortions would be less medically sound.

If abortion were criminalized, other forms of birth control would become a very serious topic. Good sex education would become a must for our society.

If abortion were criminalized, otherwise "normal" people and doctors would be arrested, put on trial, and incarcerated. The public wouldn't like that, and the law would be returned to where it is now.

If abortion were criminalized, our society would be burdened by more unwanted children. Moreover, these children would be the wards of irresponsible mothers who don't want them. That is a recipie for disaster. The rest of us would be required to step in for our own good.

If abortion were criminalized it might promote a "culture of life" but that isn't likely. THe death penalty and abortion are not linked in many minds. Abortion kills the innocent, the death penalty kills the guilty (one hopes). War and other violence has actually gone down in societies that embrace abortion, that doesnt mean it will increase if it is criminalized, but it may because of increased social problems.

Yet for Democrats and Progressives, abortion is not as important as it is for Christians and people who think abortion is murder. A compromise can be reached, but the right must be willing to pay "big time".

1. Universal health care, sorry libretarians.

2. Sex education taught from the early years of public school with an emphasis on birth control, not abstinence.

3. Increased funding for programs that care for unwanted and neglected kids; I'm talking Pentagon money here folks.

4. Exceptions for the life of the mother, rape, and incest.

5. Government subsidy of birth control and morning after pills.

6. The first conviction on abortion does not send people to jail, rather it should result in a suspension of a medical liscence for the doctor, and a cash fine for the mother. Subsequent abortions having much stiffer penalties.

The fact is that many "Reagan Democrats", many of them Catholics, simply will never vote for a candidate that is for abortion. But that is their only objection to returning to the Democrats.

One last thought. A lot of posters on this board live in a Manichaean, or good vs.evil, black and white world. Sometimes the problem isn't your beliefs, its how you hold them. Try going out into Middle America and hear why they just don't trust democrats and "liberals". You might learn something.

 I did clinic defense in Louisiana many years ago, and out of a crowd of several hundred, there seemed to be exactly two--a Franciscan monk and an older Cajun lady--who were actually pro-life.  The rest might be more accurately described as anti-sex. They talked pro-death penalty, pro-war, and for a way of life where you were "punished" for your "sins."

Only someone living under a rock (and there are plenty who do) could ever think anti-sex policies would lead to fewer abortions.  Abstinence has never worked, not once, not in any period of human history. So how the hell is it suddenly supposed to start working now?  

Since people insist on having sex, anti-sex policies do nothing but reduce birth control and increase abortions.  That's such a no-brainer, I'm amazed it needs repeating.  

In the good old days, and in much of the world now, without legal abortions, they also increased the death rate among women.  Four more years of Class Clown George, and we could be right back to that.  It wasn't pretty.