78. Abma et al., 'Fertility, Family Planning, and Women's Health.'
79. It is important to point out that, in spite of these declines, nearly two-thirds of teen births resulted from unintended pregnancies. Abma et al., 'Fertility, Family Planning, and Women's Health.'
80. 'Adolescent Sexual Health in the U.S. and Europe—Why the Difference?' Advocates for Youth fact sheet, Washington, D.C., 2000.
81. Schemo, 'Virginity Pledges by Teenagers.'
82. It is impossible to find a forthright statement that abstinence-plus education meaningfully delays teen sexual intercourse. Its evaluators have been able to find out only that, for instance, if you want to delay intercourse, you should start classes before kids start 'experimenting with sexual behaviors.' And all studies show that sex ed does not encourage earlier intercourse. J. J. Frost and J. D. Forrest, 'Understanding the Impact of Effective Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programs,'
83. S. Zabin and M. B. Hirsch,
6. Compulsory Motherhood
1. This law, the first gate to open in the gradual spilling away of federally protected abortion rights, was reauthorized in every subsequent Congress; its constitutionality was upheld three times. In 1993, after a long battle, it was 'liberalized' to add exceptions for rape and incest. But while the government paid for a third of abortions from 1973 to 1977, it now pays for almost none. Marlene Gerber Fried, 'Abortion in the U.S.: Barriers to Access,'
2. Ellen Frankfort and Frances Kissling,
3. 'Who Decides? A State-by-State Review of Abortion and Reproductive Rights,' 10th ed., National Abortion Rights Action League report, Washington, D.C, 2001.
4. By the 1990s, more than 80 percent of clinics were regularly picketed by anti-abortion activists. Ann Cronin, 'Abortion: The Rate vs. the Debate,'
5. The agency reported at least fifteen bombings and arson attacks at clinics each year from 1993 through 1995, seven in 1996, and one in Atlanta in 1997 that injured six people. Rick Bragg, 'Abortion Clinic Hit by 2 Bombs; Six Are Injured,'
6. Jim Yardley and David Rohde, 'Abortion Doctor in Buffalo Slain; Sniper Attack Fits Violent Pattern,'
7. Alan Guttmacher Institute, 'Into a New World: Young Women's Sexual and Reproductive Lives,'
8. Women ages eighteen to twenty-four are about twice as likely to have abortions as women in the general population. Stanley K. Henshaw and Kathryn Kost, 'Abortion Patients in 1994-1995: Characteristics and Contraceptive Use,'
9. Robert Pear, 'Provision on Youth Health Insurance Would Sharply Limit Access to Abortion,'
10. About twenty-six million have legal abortions yearly, and an estimated twenty million have illegal ones, ending about half of all unplanned pregnancies.
11. Estimated rates ran from one in ten to almost one in two, and among Kinsey's unmarried informants, 90 percent of those who got pregnant procured abortions. Lawrence Lader,
12. 'Abortion Common among All Women Even Those Thought to Oppose Abortion,' Alan Guttmacher Institute press release, 1996.
13. Cronin, 'Abortion: The Rate vs. the Debate.'
14. In a New York Times-CBS poll in 1998, half of respondents thought abortion was too easy to get; as compared with 1989, fewer people felt that an interrupted career or education was an acceptable reason to get an abortion; and only 15 percent believed abortion was acceptable in the second trimester. '[P]ublic opinion has shifted notably away from general acceptance of legal abortion and toward an evolving center of gravity: a more nuanced, conditional acceptance that some call a 'permit but discourage' model.' Carey Goldberg with Janet Elder, 'Public Still Backs Abortion, but Wants Limits, Poll Says,'
15. Jennifer Baumgartner, 'The Pro-Choice PR Problem,'
16. Naomi Wolf, 'Our Bodies, Our Souls: Rethinking Pro-Choice Rhetoric,'
17. Janet Hadley, 'The 'Awfulisation' of Abortion,' paper presented to the Abortion Matters conference, Amsterdam, March 1996.
18. 'Abortion Common . . . ,' Guttmacher Institute.
19.
20. See, for example, Vincent M. Rue, 'The Psychological Realities of Induced Abortion,' in
21. 'Abortion Study Finds No Long-Term Ill Effects on Emotional Well-Being,'
22. 'Researchers Document Flaw in Research Linking Abortion and Breast Cancer,'
23. Rebecca Stone and Cynthia Waszak, 'Adolescent Knowledge and Attitudes about Abortion,'
24. Stone and Waszak, 'Adolescent Knowledge and Attitudes.'
25. Connecticut, Michigan, and Rhode Island, to name three, forbade discussion of abortion as a reproductive health method; South Carolina allowed discussion of the procedure but only its negative consequences. 'Sexuality Education in America: A State-by-State Review,' National Abortion Rights Action League report, Washington, D.C., 1995. Under the federal abstinence-only regulations, of course, abortion may not be mentioned.
26.
27. On the tonsillectomy comparison, see 'Safety of Abortion,' National Abortion Rights Action League fact sheet, Washington, D.C., undated, received 1998; and
28. Girls Incorporated,
29.
30. Peggy Brick and Bill Taverner,