Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin
From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Back-alley abortions don't decrease
Message-ID: <4707@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 18-Sep-84 15:34:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.4707
Posted: Tue Sep 18 15:34:16 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 20:02:50 EDT
References: <252@uwmacc.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistics Research Lab
Lines: 50

The quotes certainly seem to justify the subject statement. However, does
anyone have any idea WHY the illegal abortions continue or even rise when 
legal abortions are available? I can think of several possible reasons,
listed below. Are these true, and encompass the whole range of reasons,
or are there other causes?

1. Inertia -- "I've always gotten my abortions from Fred, and I'm not
	going to change now." (This seems unlikely to me, but maybe...)

2. Bureaucratic red tape and hassle surrounding legal abortions; though
	they may be "available" technically, you can really only get one
	through persistence and fighting the system -- "Certainly
	you can have an abortion; the approval cycle takes one year
	from date of application..."

3. Cost -- Legal abortion is not covered by health insurance (this is
	so for federal employee health plans, by the way), and the well-known
	insane cost of hospital facilities, doctor fees, etc., makes
	a legal abortion too expensive to pay for out of your own pocket.
	The illegal has less overhead and charges a flat fee which is less.
	(This also seems unlikely; I though illegal activities always
	cost more than legal sources, and I also thought that most private
	health insurance covered abortions. Whether public-funded legal
	abortion is available to charity or welfare patients depends on
	current political climate and where you live, right?)

4. Secrecy -- Getting a legal abortion puts you on many public records,
	but an illegal one is of course off-the-record. (But just how
	public are those records -- we did have a Privacy Act, plus all the
	usual medical-confidentiality traditions, after all? And from
	whom are you keeping it secret? An illegal makes you subject to
	blackmail, for that matter.)

5. Convenience -- To get a legal abortion, you have to go to {the county
	seat, the provincial hospital, Europe, America, the next town,
	whatever}, but you can get an illegal one at home, or at the
	laundromat, or somewhere close by. (This might be more applicable
	in the foreign examples given in the base posting.)

6. Contrariness -- If something is available both legally and illegally,
	some people will chose the illegal one just because it is. (?)

I don't know; none of these seem to be good enough reasons, either alone
or in combination, to account for a rise in illegal abortions when legal
ones are available. They might justify illegal abortions *not disappearing*
when legal ones are instituted, but no more. So what else is there?

Will Martin

(Please post, don't mail, discussions on this topic. Thanks!)